Beheading of Saint John the Baptist

Scholars have dismissed the idea that Lucas van Leyden's fascination with Power of Women stories had to do with an affair that produced his only child, Marijtgen. Most certainly he liked these stories' potential for pictorial drama. Setting a pattern that would last for centuries, Lucas implicated the fetching Salome alone in John the Baptist's demise, even though her mother was behind it. Here the callous maiden nearly steps on her victim as she accepts her prize.