La tête de Robert

montesquiou.jpg

I’m working against a deadline this week so I’ll apologise in advance if posts tend to be brief.

I’ve had this picture hanging around for a couple of months, something that good friend Thom sent me (thanks Thom!) to add to the apparently limitless catalogue of Salomé-related pictures. The subject is everyone’s favourite fin de siècle aristocrat Robert de Montesquiou—eccentric poet, waspish aesthete and chiroptophile—posing as the head of John the Baptist in a cyanotype from circa 1885 which may be embellished in the Comte’s own hand.

Meanwhile, Michelangelo writes to inform me of a feature-length Super-8 film on the Salomé theme by Mexican filmmaker Téo Hernandez (1939–1993) which will receive a screening at the Pleasure Dome, Toronto, in February. Sound very Jarmanesque so naturally I’d love to see it. Details here.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
The Salomé archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
Philippe Jullian, connoisseur of the exotic