This article accompanies the fable
Sacred Prostitute

Salome and the Medusa

Caravaggio's Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist was painted at the end of his career, around 1609-1610. Caravaggio had expored much the same idea in his earlier Judith Beheading Holofernes and David with the Head of Goliath.

Caravaggio has also painted the Medusa in 1590, but Rubens went him one better with this extravaganza of around 1617-18. This is in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum.