_Cesare da Sesto_ (Lombard: 1477-1523).
Leonardo da Vinci was "very successfully installed," says
Vasari, "by Cesare da Sesto, who was also a Milanese." Cesare
was born at Sesto Calende on the Lago Maggiore, and is supposed
to have worked under Leonardo in Milan, 1507-1512. At Rome he
was, according to Lomazzo, an intimate friend of Raphael.
The daughter of Herodias, with a face of haunting beauty, points to a
vase, over which the executioner holds the head of John the Baptist.
The table on which it rests has sphinxes for supports. This picture is
a replica with variations of the one by Cesare in the Vienna Gallery,
and is said to have come from the Barberini Palace in 1799.