AFTER SIR PETER PAUL RUBENS | THE JUDGEMENT OF SOLOMON

Anonymous sale, New York, Christie's, 3 April 1990, lot 88 (as Circle of Gaspar de Crayer, after Peter Paul Rubens). 

This work is a 17th century copy after the original painting by Rubens in the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen.¹ Its subject comes from the Book of Kings in the Old Testament, where two harlots each give birth, and when one of the boys dies, both women claim to King Solomon that the living child is theirs. Captured here is the moment when the real mother reveals herself to King Solomon after he decrees that the child should be cut in two so each women receives half. He knew to discern between them since the non-mother approved of his proposal, while the actual mother begged for the child's life.

^1. Oil on canvas, 234 by 303 cm., inv. no. KMSsp185. See https://collection.smk.dk/ - /en/detail/KMSsp185