Description
The Head of Saint John the Baptist Brought to Herod by Albrecht Dürer places a shocking presentation within a formally ordered meal. Figures sit around a table as the severed head is brought before them, while a carefully described ceiling and interior frame the encounter. Rich garments and furnishings make the setting convincingly domestic despite the disturbing subject.
Created in 1511, this woodcut derives its force from the contrast between ceremony and violence. The steady table and architectural lines contain a gathering whose gestures reveal different responses to the event. Dürer brings the episode close through faces, hands and tangible objects, allowing the familiar structure of a shared meal to sharpen the unsettling character of what is being presented.
Read our guide to giclée prints or browse the Dürer collection.
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