Seducing Eve

Grande Eve by the French painter Louis Icart (1888-1950).

Horny Old Men

Susanna and the Elders by the German painter Lovis Corinth (1858-1925).

Seductive Judith

Judith by the Flemish manierist painter Jan Massys (1509-1575). Another great example of the height of art in the 16th century.

Nice Girly Bather

Susanna by the British Painter Frederick Goodall (1822-1904). Sure Susanna is bathing, but where are the elders?

Seductive Bathsheba

Bathsheba with David's Letter by the Dutch Golden Age painter Willem Drost (1633-1659). The painting was inspired by Rembrandt's Bathsheba.

Mannerist Susanna

Susanna and the Elders by the Italian Mannerist painter Alessandro Allori (1535–1607). More a study about movement.

Gorgeous Bathsheba

David and Bathsheba (1562) by the Flemish manierist painter Jan Massys (1509-1575). A great example that already in the 16th century nude painting could be highly erotic. Kind of perfect.

Oriental Esther

Esther Preparing Herself to Meet King Ahasuerus La Toilette d'Esther (1841) by the French Neoclassical painter Théodore Chassériau,(1819-1856). Despite the exotic oriental subject the clear lines of Neoclassical art are still dominant.

Salomé Dancing

Salomé (1932) by the Spanish painter Federico Beltrán Massés (1885-1949). Kind of an Art Deco interpretation. Because there’s no head to be seen, it must be the moment when she’s still dancing, putting down the veils.

Salome

Salome (1888) by the Spanish painter Francisco Masriera y Manovens (1842-1902). A really gorgeous and seductive Salome. A nice example for the quality of late 19th century paintings.

Seductive Eve

The Woman, the Man and the Serpent (1911) by the English painter John Byam Shaw (1872-1919). Despite many are assigning Shaw to the Pre-Raphaelites, I would like to call him a symbolist because he was much better than those epigones of the Pre-Raphaelites.

Bathsheba

Bathsheba (1820-25) by the German painter Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1794- 1872). Even though Schnorr is assigned to the Romantic the painting shows a strong neoclassical influence.

Bathsheba and Peeping David

Taking her bath the beautiful Bathshaba was observed by king David. If this was intendet by her (she become the mother of Solomon) or not is still discussed.

But whether or not, because of the subject - a naked beautiful women bathing - she became in art the ancestor of all harem bathers and many more.


Bathsheba (c.1560) by the Flemish painter Jan Massys (c.1510 - 1575).

Salome the Femme Fatale

Salome painting by the belgian painter Léon Herbo (1850-1907).

One of the most popular subjects at the end of the 19th century was Salome. Different to older paintings she appears now as the incarnation of exotism and seduction. Oscar Wilde brought her to the theatre and a little later Richard Strauss wrote an adaption for the opera.
She was THE women of the fin de siecle.



Many artists like the american painter Robert Henri (1865–1929) transferred the old myth to their modern world of nightclubs and bars. Salome appeared as the prototype of the modern vamp or femme fatale.