The Feast of Herod (recto) Tomyris with the Head of Cyrus (verso)

The Feast of Herod (recto); Tomyris with the Head of Cyrus (verso), c. 1637–38. Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577–1640). Pen and brown ink, with black and red chalk, touched with white gouache; sheet: 27.2 x 47.2 cm (10 11/16 x 18 9/16 in.); secondary support: 27.6 x 47.3 cm (10 7/8 x 18 5/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Delia E. Holden and L. E. Holden Funds, 1954.2

Created in 1637 during the Baroque period, this work belongs firmly within the portrait tradition. Peter Paul Rubens worked at a moment when the rivalry between Catholic Baroque drama and Protestant restraint reshaped what a painting could mean. Every gesture, fabric, and gleam of light was decoded by contemporary viewers like a private language.

Executed in pen and brown ink, with black and red chalk, touched with white gouache, measuring Sheet: 27.2 x 47.2 cm (10 11/16 x 18 9/16 in.); Secondary Support: 27.6 x 47.3 cm (10 7/8 x 18 5/8 in.), the surface rewards close looking. Peter Paul Rubens builds the composition through layered glazes and a tightly controlled palette, letting cool shadows recede so that the warm, lit passages step forward.

Look closely and the painting opens up. Objects you might pass over — a folded letter, a half-drawn curtain, the angle of a glance — were placed to be read. The sitter is constructed: clothes, pose, and attributes were chosen to project status, virtue, and lineage.

Today the painting is held by Cleveland Museum of Art in Cleveland, where it remains a touchstone for understanding Peter Paul Rubens's contribution to Western art. It has been studied, copied, restored, and argued over for centuries — proof that great paintings keep generating new readings long after their creators have gone.

“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”