Mary Salome and Zebedee Mary Salome and Zebedee Mary Salome and Zebedee by Tilman Riemenschneider (c.1460–1531) originally formed the right wing of an altarpiece showing the family of the Virgin Mary. The central scene would have shown St Anne seated with her daughter Mary and the Christ Child. Mary Salome was another daughter of St Anne, half sister of the Virgin and wife of Zebedee. Riemenschnieder was one of the most important sculptors in southern Germany in the late fifteenth and sixteenth century. He specialised is carving limewood altarpieces, some of which were painted. Others, such as this example which was carved in Würzburg
Salome I divorced her husband in contravention of what Josephus ("Jewish Antiquities" 15.7.10) says were Jewish laws at the time:"But some time afterward, when Salome happened to quarrel with Costobarus, she sent him a bill of divorce and dissolved her marriage with him, though this was not according to the Jewish laws; for with us it is lawful for a husband to do so; but a wife; if she departs from her husband, cannot of herself be married to another, unless her former husband put her away. However, Salome chose to follow not the law of her country, but the law of