a visit with jesus

 Bible Art

The Feast of Herod
Artist: Fra Filippo Lippi
 1452-65    Painting

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The Feast of Herod was painted by Lippi as part of a life of John the Baptist. It is part of a fresco cycle accompanied by another, that of a life of St. Stephen.

The crowded composition is peopled by merrymakers at the birthday banquet of King Herod, Antipas, here standing authoritatively and tall in a crimson robe to the left. Herod looks out at us at moment between the festivity of his step-daughter Salome dancing to his right and the macabre realization that Salome's demand of the beheading of John the Baptist has been carried out.

This fresco is in the Prato Cathedral also knowsn as the Cathedral of Saint Stephen,  a Roman Catholic cathedral in Prato, Tuscany, Central Italy,

The Feast of Herod
Artist: Donatello
 c. 1427    Sculpture

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Many of Donatello’s most famous sculptures were done ‘in the round,’ but there are a few masterful works that were done in relief. One such sculpture is known as The Feast of Herod and is a depiction of the well-known Biblical story of the feast that was organized by the evil King Herod. 

According to the Bible account, Herod’s daughter, Salome, demanded the head of John the Baptist, which King Herod reluctantly agreed to provide.

Donatello’s relief sculpture portrays the moment when John the Baptist is being beheaded. Most historians and scholars believe the sculpture was done in 1427 and was one of the earliest relief works done by Donatello.

The sculpture depicts the beheading of John the Baptist after Salome asks Herod Antipas for his head on a platter. The scene depicts an executioner presenting the severed head, and Herod reacting in shock.