Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist

Marczell de Nemes, Budapest and Munich (until 1928; his sale, Frederik Muller, Amsterdam, November 13–14, 1928, no. 37, as by a French painter, about 1440, for £1,416); Michael Friedsam, New York (until d. 1931)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Michael Friedsam Collection," November 15, 1932–April 9, 1933, no catalogue.

[O. von] F[alke]. and [A.L.] M[ayer]. "New York: Französische Primitive bei Kleinberger." Pantheon 1 (January 1928), p. 52, mentions it as a variant of Salome Dancing before Herod (MMA 32.100.126), observing that the floor tiles in both paintings are unmistakably Valencian.

Bryson Burroughs and Harry B. Wehle. "The Michael Friedsam Collection: Paintings." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 27, section 2 (November 1932), pp. 5–6, identify the three Salome panels as French primitives, dating them to the second quarter of the 15th century and finding similarities with Franco-Flemish tapestries and book illustrations of the period; note that Salome assumes almost the same pose in all three panels and the same figures appear behind the table in the scenes of her dancing and with the saint's head .

Katharine Grant Sterne. "The French Primitives in the Friedsam Collection." Parnassus 4 (January 1932), p. 9, ill., attributes the Salome panels to Jean d'Orléans.

Chandler R. Post. Letter. September 11, 1936, considers the Salome panels Aragonese, not Catalan; suggests the panels are by a "rival" of the artist who painted the retable of Saint John the Baptist in the San Diego Museum of Art; believes they were executed by the same artist who painted the retable of Saint Quiteria in the church of San Miguel at Saragossa.

Chandler Rathfon Post. A History of Spanish Painting. Vol. 7, The Catalan School in the Late Middle Ages. Cambridge, Mass., 1938, part 2, pp. 824–26, fig. 328, attributes the Salome panels with certainty to either a Catalan or Aragonese painter, suggests they are by the Master of Saint Quiteria and dates them 1440–50; sees parallels in the elaborate costumes, figure types, setting, and haloes to this artist's retable in the church of San Miguel, Saragossa; calls the MMA panels somewhat "touched up".

Harry B. Wehle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Italian, Spanish, and Byzantine Paintings. New York, 1940, pp. 218–19, attributes the Salome panels to a Catalan workshop, dating them about 1460.

Millia Davenport. The Book of Costume. New York, 1948, vol. 1, p. 365, no. 959, ill. p. 364 (cropped).

Nanette B. Rodney. "Salome." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 11 (March 1953), p. 196.

Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 92.

Eric Young. "Spanish Painting: From International Gothic to Goya." Apollo 115 (June 1982), pp. 433–34, attributes the Salome panels to an anonymous Aragonese painter and dates them about 1430–40; suggests the MMA panels were painted by the same artist as a retable of Saint John the Baptist in the San Diego Museum of Art, whom he calls the "San Diego Master"; observes that the MMA panels are all "somewhat repainted".

Martin E. Petersen. Letter to Mary Sprinson. December 22, 1982, judging from photographs, comments on differences between the MMA Salome panels and the San Diego retable of Saint John the Baptist, suggesting they were not painted by the same artist.

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 149, ill.

This painting, Salome Dancing before Herod, and The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (The Met 32.100.126 and 127) are from the same altarpiece.