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#113

The New Salome

Klinger, Max (1857-1920) | Sculptor

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In 1900, when Georg Treu, Director of the Dresden Sculpture Collection in the Albertinum, saw Max Klinger’s The New Salome, he is said to have commented:

“A modern little predatory creature.”

Here, you can see Klinger’s plaster model painted by his own hand. In Georg Treu’s words:

“How well her dangerous dark eyes, headstrong little nose, and cold narrow lips match the position of her arms, crossed with a smug naïve cruelty over the distorted heads of her dying victims.”


In the biblical story, Salome performs a seductive dance for King Herod. As a reward, she asks for the head of John the Baptist. But Klinger has reinterpreted the biblical Salome, transforming her into a self-confident, modern femme fatale, bringing disaster on the men around her. Around 1900, this was a popular trope of women resonating with a zeitgeist when many men felt threatened by women’s growing success in their fight for political and social rights. Might that also have been true for Georg Treu?

Klinger’s Salome sculpture is also painted – another example of his modern approach. In the late nineteenth century, the cry was often, ‘sculptures have to be white’ – best of all, in brilliant marble, echoing those statues known from classical world. But Klinger was up on the latest developments. He knew that ancient sculptures had also been found bearing traces of colour – and he reached for his paints. Klinger’s New Salome is considered a key work of painted sculpture in the late nineteenth century. But Max Klinger also dared to do something unheard of – mixing materials. Have you noticed Salome’s wonderful eyes are made of amber?

 

Material & Technique
Plaster, painted
Museum
Skulpturensammlung
Dating
1887/88
Inventory number
ZV 1269
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