Salome stands with her back to us in a sweeping black gown patterned with peacock feathers, a crest of plumes rising from her hair. She leans toward a young man in a loose, ruffled robe who lifts one hand, and a peacock with a fanned, dotted tail appears in the background at upper left. Fine lines trail like threads from her robe across the white page. Aubrey Beardsley drew it in 1893 for Oscar Wilde's play Salome, whose English edition John Lane published with his illustrations in 1894.

The V&A describes the scene as the Young Syrian being warned against gazing too freely at Salome. Of all the Salome pictures, it most clearly shows Beardsley's great debt to Whistler's painted decorations in the house of Frederick Leyland. Tate notes that line-block printing let Beardsley's black-and-white drawings be reproduced and circulated widely, while the pen originals are rarely seen. His original drawing for this plate, in black ink and graphite, belonged to John Lane and is now at Harvard's Fogg Museum.

This impression comes from John Lane's portfolio of the Salome drawings, issued around 1907. It is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.