The figure of Salome stands out against a gray and indistinct background, from which she emerges carrying the severed head of the Baptist on a plate, to be delivered to her mother Herodias. The Gospel (Mt 14, 1-12) narrates, in fact, that Herod Antipas had the saint arrested for open criticism of his union with Herodias, former wife of his brother, but who did not have the courage to have him killed. During a banquet in her honor, Salome performed a sensual dance that struck Herod so much that he promised her to fulfill any of his wishes; the girl, instigated by her mother, then asked to have the head of John the Baptist on a tray. Guido Reni's version focuses on the staging of the contrast between the narrative episode - a girl carrying a severed head on a plate - and the face of Salome, who sets her eyes on the viewer, while maintaining a cold and impersonal distance, accentuated by the skilful painting technique used by Reni, who brings out his rich robes and headdress from the canvas, through long and full-bodied brushstrokes. The work is probably the one purchased by Cardinal Francesco Barberini on 13 December 1639 and which entered the Corsini collection as a gift from Monsignor Bardi to Pope Clement XII (1730-1740), immediately becoming one of the most appreciated paintings, as evidenced by the numerous copies and the praises that are dedicated to it in the guides of Rome between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.