{
"data": {
"id": 131585,
"accession_number": "1954.2.b",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Tomyris with the Head of Cyrus (verso), c. 1637\u201338. Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577\u20131640). Pen and brown ink, with black and red chalk; 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.b",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Tomyris with the Head of Cyrus (verso)",
"creation_date": "c. 1637\u201338",
"creation_date_earliest": 1637,
"creation_date_latest": 1638,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"Flanders"
],
"technique": "pen and brown ink, with black and red chalk",
"support_materials": [
{
"description": "beige(2) laid paper, perimeter mounted to a false margin of beige(1) wove paper",
"watermarks": []
}
],
"department": "Drawings",
"collection": "DR - Flemish",
"type": "Drawing",
"measurements": "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.)",
"dimensions": {
"sheet": {
"height": 0.272,
"width": 0.472
},
"secondary support": {
"height": 0.276,
"width": 0.473
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "by artist, center, in brown ink: plus spatij",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 192019,
"title": "Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000).",
"opening_date": "2000-08-27T00:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Cambridge/New York 1956, 25-26, no. 26, pl. 26; Antwerp 1956, 107-8, no. 131, pl. 59; Cleveland 1980, 29-32; Wellesley/Cleveland 1993-94, 203-5, no. 58.",
"opening_date": "1956-01-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art (8/27/00 - 10/17/00); NY, NY: The Pierpont Morgan Library (5/24/01- 8/19/01); Museum of Fine Arts Houston (10/14/01 - 1/6/02); \"Master Drawings from The Cleveland Museum of Art\", exh. cat. no. 71, pp.174-175; p.294.",
"opening_date": "2000-08-27T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Unidentified collector (Lugt 622, verso, lower right, in black ink, probably Austrian collection c. 1800); English private collection (According to Burchard and d'Hulst, Antwerp, 1956); [Herbert N. Bier]. Purchased by the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1954.",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "The two stories that Rubens depicted on the front and back of this sheet of paper each feature a gruesome death, the result of revenge at the hands of a powerful woman.",
"description": "Peter Paul Rubens had a large studio in Antwerp and used drawing to prepare for large paintings as well as to direct the many pupils who assisted him. Striking in its immediacy, the drawing on the recto of this sheet of paper is a preparatory study for the Feast of Herod painting now at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh. Herod, wearing a large cap and wrapped in a mantle, shrinks back in horror as Salome uncovers a charger that holds the head of Saint John the Baptist. Smiling, Herodias grabs the platter with her left hand and, in a chilling detail, gestures toward the charger with a fork. Rubens wrote what is usually interpreted as \u201cHerodias somewhat higher\u201d at the top of the sheet. The verso of the sheet depicts a sketch for another story featuring a change of fortune at the hands of a vengeful woman, Tomyris with the Head of Cyrus. Rubens made two paintings of the subject (now in Paris and Boston). A rare theme, the story tells of Queen Tomyris who, avenging the death of her son in battle, collects the head of his murderer Cyrus in a bag of human blood. Tomyris is shown seated under a canopy holding a scepter, while the servants before her handle Cyrus\u2019s head. Rubens wrote \u201cplus spatij\u201d (more space) in the center of the sheet.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q80023039"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1954.2.b-tomyris-with-the-hea"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Francis, Henry. \"The Preliminary Pen and Ink Drawing for the 'Feast of Herod' nu Peter Paul Rubens.\" The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 41, no. 6 (June 1954): 124-127.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 124; Reproduced: p. 127",
"url": "https://www.jstor.org/stable/25141969"
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 587",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1958/page/n110"
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, Diane DeGrazia, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2000.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: P. 174-75, 294; Reproduced: P. 175, cat. no. 71",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1954.2.b",
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"creditline": "Delia E. Holden and L. E. Holden Funds",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
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"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 131585,
"creators": [
{
"id": 1251,
"description": "Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577\u20131640)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1577",
"death_year": "1640",
"use_in_caption": true,
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],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1954-01-14T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1637,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "c. 1637\u201338",
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"cover_accession_number": "1954.2",
"is_nazi_era_provenance": true,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-03-27 00:09:47.629000"
}
}