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# Donatello’s “Feast of Herod” in Lille and the Innovative Perspective of the Marble Relief
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/kak-donatello-udalos-v-mramore-dostich-togo-zhe-effekta-chto-da-vinchi-v-maslianoi-zhivopisi/
- Published: 2025-04-08T06:23:28.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:44:50.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Faith, Art, Museums

How Did Donatello Achieve in Marble the Same Effect That Da Vinci Achieved in Oil Painting?

Now held in the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille, the "Feast of Herod" is one of Donatello's greatest masterpieces. The marble version may perhaps yield to the dramatic intensity of the scene, but unlike his bronze relief on the same subject, the marble one is incredibly complex in both composition and technical solution. Thanks to his innovative treatment of perspective, Donatello succeeded in creating an almost flat relief with the sense of real space.

The Feast of Herod is an Old Testament event, during which King Herod watches his daughter Salome dance, and she asks to be given the head of Saint John the Baptist as a reward for her dance. Donatello shows the scene of the dance and the moment of the appearance of the severed head of the Baptist, but not the moment of the beheading of John the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus Christ.

The bas-relief has three aspects of narrative and a multitude of omitted details, as well as hidden particulars that reveal themselves upon careful examination of every centimetre of the surface. However, the "Feast of Herod" remained the only example of such a technique: Donatello, who disliked repetition, decided not to use again the solutions chosen for this relief, keeping the central place for the "Feast"