Support The support consists of two pieces of plain-weave canvas with a slightly tilted horizontal seam at approx. 62 cm from the bottom on the left and approx. 58 cm on the right, and has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been preserved, though severely damaged.
Preparatory layers The double ground extends over the tacking edges. The first, deep orange layer contains mainly fine orange-red, some black and several dark red pigment particles, both large and small. The second, beige layer consists of fine and coarser white pigment particles and some yellow, reddish-orange and black pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends over the tacking edges. The composition was generally built up from the back to the front with reserves for the main compositional elements. A brownish, initial lay-in was applied with sketchy, thin brushwork, introducing light and dark areas with occasional few strong, dark accents, for example under the feet of two of the women dancing. This undermodelling was partly left uncovered, mainly in the middle ground, for example on the right in the area between the skirts of the three dancers. The painting was worked up wet in wet with more opaque paints. In general, the transitions were meticulously closed or made to overlap, but in the middle ground a few edges of reserves have remained visible, for instance around the bodies of the dancing women. Most figures in the foreground and their attributes were carefully finished. The foliage was added last, as were many of the details, such as strong accents and lines at eyes and lips, especially in the statue’s face, red touches on cheeks and ears, particularly in the foreground figures, and highlights on metals and draperies. The dark leaves, notably those in the upper left corner, were done with a transparent dark green. Effective use was made of alternating paints, dry and fluid, translucent and opaque, and of juxtaposing fine details with broader brushwork, as can be seen in the branch held up by the woman in green in the centre. A deep red glaze was used for the mantle of King Salomon. The texture of the loose brushwork is visible overall. A shallow, dark halo to the right of the figure in red with the dogs suggests that his head was first planned more to the right.
Willem de Ridder, 2009

Fair. The canvas has turned reddish, possibly due to pigments in the ground. The paint is cracked along the seam. There are numerous paint losses throughout, some of them roughly retouched, as well as discoloured retouchings, overpaints and areas of abrasion. A big scratch runs through the figure in red and the foremost dog. The varnish has severely yellowed, saturates poorly and has turned dull.

…; sale, F.M. Hodgson (†), dowager of Baron P.C. Nahuys, et al., Amsterdam (F. Muller), 14 November 1883 sqq., no. 17, fl. 400, to Roos,¹¹Copy RKD1. or to Victor de Stuers,²²Copy RKD2. for the museum³³NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 164, no. 227 (28 December 1883, no. 3675); NHA, ARS, Kop., inv. 39, pp. 338-39, no. 1 (3 January 1884).

Object number: SK-A-787

King Solomon’s idolatry is an Old Testament story about the aberration of a king of the Israelites who ignored God’s commandment not to mix with heathen nations, and, influenced by many of his concubines, built sacrificial altars for Ashtoreth, the principal female deity of the Zidonians, and Milcom, the god of the Ammonites (I Kings 11:1-8). Scenes from Solomon’s life were extremely popular in the seventeenth century, particularly in Haarlem,⁷⁷Y. Bleyerveld, Hoe bedriechlijck dat die vrouwen zijn: Vrouwenlisten in de beeldende kunst in de Nederlanden circa 1350-1650, Leiden 2000, pp. 239-41. and his idolatry was repeatedly depicted by Willem de Poorter,⁸⁸For example SK-A-757. Jacob Willemsz de Wet and Gerrit Willemsz de Wet. In addition, almost half the Old Testament history paintings by the Delft artist Leonaert Bramer are devoted to the story of Solomon. The idolatry was associated above all with the Protestant rejection of the Catholic veneration of religious images, but could also be a warning against leading a dissolute life, as demonstrated by the book Heydensche afgoden, beelden, tempels en offeranden; met de vremde ceremonien naer elcks landts wijse (Pagan Idols, Statues, Temples and Sacrifices; with the Alien Ceremonies Corresponding to Each Country’s Custom) published in Haarlem in 1646 by an unknown pupil of De Poorter and Pieter de Grebber.⁹⁹Van Gent in C. Tümpel et al., Het Oude Testament in de schilderkunst van de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Joods Historisch Museum) 1991-92, p. 96. The story was often used in fifteenth and sixteenth-century print series of female wiles as a reference to the pernicious power of women.

As so often in scenes of Solomon’s idolatry, the sumptuously dressed king is shown kneeling in adoration of a gold statue, which Jacob Hogers gave an eagle and a lightning bolt in a remarkable identification with the supreme god Zeus. One of the women from his harem is enticing Solomon to venerate the idol with gifts and fragrant and burnt offerings. Given Hogers’s ties to Haarlem, his wife’s native city, he could have been influenced by the artists there. The horizontal composition with the different groups of figures, the statue placed before a curtain and a vista on the right recall depictions of the subject by Frans Francken II and masters from his circle.¹⁰¹⁰See, for example, U. Härting, Frans Francken der Jüngere (1581-1642): Die Gemälde: Mit kritischem Oeuvrekatalog, Freren 1989, pp. 246-47, nos. 73-78 (ill.). See also sale, Christie’s (Amsterdam), 11 November 1996, no. 151 (ill.). The handling of light in the enclosed space and the rendering of the ruins could have been inspired by contemporary work by Rombout van Troyen, who was active in Amsterdam, such as his Idolatry of Solomon of 1645.¹¹¹¹Present whereabouts unknown; sale, Milan (Christie’s), 29 November 2006, no. 31 (ill.). Hogers included a man in red with two greyhounds who is looking directly at the viewer, whereas Solomon’s entourage usually consists entirely of women, sometimes with boys as servants. This could be a portrait, or the artist himself perhaps, but there is no certain likeness of Hogers to confirm this.¹²¹²On this see also H.-J. Raupp, Untersuchungen zu Künstlerbildnis und Künstlerdarstellung in den Niederlanden im 17. Jahrhundert, diss., University of Heidelberg 1984, pp. 256-57.

The painting is falsely signed and dated at the bottom right, which led to its inclusion in the early literature as a work by Leonaert Bramer, which is understandable to some extent given the choice of subject and typically elongated bodies but totally unacceptable on the evidence of the technique.¹³¹³H. Wichmann, Leonaert Bramer, sein Leben und seine Kunst: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der holländischen Malerei zur Zeit Rembrandts: Mit 36 Abbildungen auf 32 Lichtdrucktafeln und ausführlichen Katalogen der erhaltenen und verschollenen Werke, Leipzig 1923, pp. 99-100, no. 28. The attribution was already doubted by Hofstede de Groot, ‘Kritische opmerkingen omtrent Oud-Hollandsche schilderijen in onze musea, II’, Oud Holland 19 (1901), pp. 134-44, esp. p. 135. Renckens attributed it convincingly to Hogers on the basis of its stylistic features, and that has never been called into question.¹⁴¹⁴B.J.A. Renckens, ‘Jacob Hogers’, Oud Holland 70 (1955), pp. 51-66, esp. pp. 56-57. A fairly early date in the second half of the 1640s seems the most likely, because Hogers’s chiaroscuro and brushwork are far less pronounced than in the 1650s.¹⁵¹⁵B.J.A. Renckens, ‘Jacob Hogers’, Oud Holland 70 (1955), pp. 51-66, esp. p. 57.

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2026

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

H. Wichmann, Leonaert Bramer, sein Leben und seine Kunst: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der holländischen Malerei zur Zeit Rembrandts: Mit 36 Abbildungen auf 32 Lichtdrucktafeln und ausführlichen Katalogen der erhaltenen und verschollenen Werke, Leipzig 1923, pp. 99-100, no. 28 (as Leonaert Bramer); B.J.A. Renckens, ‘Jacob Hogers’, Oud Holland 70 (1955), pp. 51-66, esp. pp. 56-57, 64, no. 3

1886, p. 13, no. 53b (as Leonaert Bramer); 1887, p. 22, no. 174 (as Leonaert Bramer); 1903, p. 62, no. 609 (as Leonaert Bramer); 1976, p. 281, no. A 787

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2026, 'Jacob Hogers, _, c. 1645 - c. 1650', in J. Bikker (ed.), _Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20028051