Scripture · Mark 14:17
Mark 6:22
Salome
When the daughter of Herodias came and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests, and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it to you.”
A veiled figure stands against deep ultramarine. Tanner isolates the dancer from the banquet, leaving the surrounding story outside the picture.
About the artwork
Mark never tells us the girl’s name; “Salome” comes from later tradition. Tanner leaves out nearly everything else as well, Herod and the head included, and paints only a tall veiled figure standing against deep ultramarine. Nudes are, in art historian Dewey F. Mosby’s words, “extremely unusual” in Tanner’s painted work, and as far as Mosby could find, this one was exhibited once in Tanner’s lifetime, in New York in 1924.
The canvas is also a nest of paintings. The back carries an unfinished study for Moses and the Burning Bush, and when conservators took Salome off its stretcher they found a separate painting, Fishermen at Sea, mounted behind it.
Featured in: Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Bible Paintings: Humiliated at Home, Honoured in Paris
What does Mark 6:22 mean?
Mark 6 recounts John the Baptist’s imprisonment and death while explaining Herod’s troubled response to reports about Jesus. At the birthday banquet, Herodias’s daughter dances and pleases Herod and his guests. His public promise of a reward leads, through her mother’s instruction, to the demand for John’s head.
The Gospel does not give the girl the name Salome. Tanner’s title follows the established identification used in later tradition and art. By removing Herod, the guests, and the execution’s outcome, the painting isolates a figure whose significance depends on the wider narrative rather than showing the entire sequence.
Mark 6:22 identifies the moment behind the title, while the surrounding verses disclose the fatal consequence of the banquet’s promises.
Sources
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington (1983.95.207A); oil on canvas, 116.5 × 89.4 cm.
Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Bible Paintings: Humiliated at Home, Honoured in Paris. Artwork reading adapted from this guide.
Mark 6 — Berean Standard Bible. Context for Mark 6:22.
Also from Mark:A ForerunnerThe Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew
Continue looking:Resurrection of Jairus’ DaughterThe Beheading of Saint John the BaptistThe Annunciation