The Idolatry of King Solomon (I Kings 11:4-8)

Support The panel consists of two vertically grained oak planks (approx. 27.6 and 20.9 cm), approx. 1.2 cm thick. The top and right edges have been trimmed. The reverse is bevelled at the bottom and on the right, and has regularly spaced saw marks. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1623. The panel could have been ready for use by 1632, but a date in or after 1642 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The double ground extends over the edges of the support at the bottom and on the left, but not over the top and right edges. The first layer is cream-coloured and slightly translucent. The second ground consists of a light brown matrix containing some white pigment with a small addition of earth pigments.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography. Some straight, horizontal incisions in the ground, presumably made with a mechanical tool, such as a ruler, are partly visible through the paint layers, and indicate the architectural structure in the background and the steps of the stairs. The latter were incised somewhat higher up than in the final painting.
Paint layers The paint extends over the edges of the support at the bottom and on the left, but not over the top and right edges. The composition was laid out in a dark brown, using the ground as a mid-tone. This sketch has remained partly visible, in the figure and bundles of wood at lower left for instance. The architecture in the background was subsequently blocked in with a light grey, leaving most of the figures in reserve. The two women executed in subdued colours behind the kneeling king in the green mantle were then placed on top, and a darker grey was used to model the architecture further, thereby also painting out another woman to the right of the king. The figures were worked up with smooth, blended transitions between mid-tones and shadows. Highlights were applied with many delicate, repetitive lines, enhancing the modelling and adding detail. This is particularly noticeable in the faces and clothing of the figures, especially in the rich embroidery of the king’s robe. Some scratches were made in the still-wet paint to render the flames from the incense in the goblet held by the red-robed woman in front of the altar. Infrared photography revealed a square reserve on the steps in the right corner, where a carpet may have been planned. Some elements were painted over the background, such as the goblet held by the woman kneeling in front of the altar. The contour of the purple robe of the figure to the left of the priest was adjusted to have it slightly extend over the latter’s white garment.
Ige Verslype, 2023

Fair. There is some slightly raised but stable paint in the figures in the lower right corner. The king’s robe and the upper part of the chair beside him display alligator cracking.

…; ? sale, Johanna Carolina Tollens (1783-1866, Amsterdam), widow of Hercules Victorianus Franciscus Usellino (1786-1854, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 30 January 1866 sqq., no. 92 (‘W. de Poorter Ecole de Rembrandt. Le roi Salomon est séduit par ses femmes et vient rendre hommage aux dieux païens. Le roi, agenouillé au pied d’un autel, est entouré de ses femmes; les prêtres, en grand sacerdoce, brûlent l’encens. Signé W. de P. h. 62, l. 48 c. Bois.’), fl. 800, to Roos;…; collection Daniel Franken Dzn (1838-1898), Amsterdam and Le Vésinet, 1872;¹¹Tentoonstelling van zeldzame en belangrijke schilderijen van oude meesters, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Arti et Amicitiae) 1872, p. 28, no. 190; H. Havard, ‘Chefs-d’oeuvre de l’école hollandaise exposés à Amsterdam en 1872’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts 14 (1872), 2nd period, no. 6, pp. 295-311, esp. p. 298. from whom acquired by Martin Coster (1819-1880), Amsterdam and Paris, 1872;²²H. Havard, ‘Chefs-d’oeuvre de l’école hollandaise exposés à Amsterdam en 1872’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts 14 (1872), 2nd period, no. 6, pp. 295-311, esp. p. 298. his sale, Paris (C. Pillet), 10 May 1880, no. 122, fl. 225, to the museum³³The lot number is written with pencil on a label on the reverse. NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 163, no. 165 (9 October 1882); NHA, ARM, Kop., inv. 39, pp. 321-22, no. 41 (22 December 1882); NHA, ARS, Kop., inv. 39, p. 322, no. 4 (10 January 1883).

ObjectNumber: SK-A-757

According to the Bible, ‘King Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites’ (I Kings 11:1). All told, he had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, and when he was old they persuaded him to make sacrifices to their gods. This displeased the Lord God of Israel, who ‘said unto Solomon, Forasmuch as this is done of thee, and thou hast not kept my covenant and my statutes, which I have commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant’ (I Kings 11:11). Willem de Poorter depicted Solomon holding a censer while he kneels to the right of centre in front of an altar at which a priest is performing the offering. A few of his numerous women are present, including two black females, probably included to emphasize the exotic nature of the harem. The object of their worship is a statue of Venus and Amor, which was modelled on the Venus caelestis in the Vatican.

Occurring most often in series of biblical and classical women who caused the downfall of their men, the idolatry of King Solomon was a popular theme in sixteenth-century prints.⁹⁹J. van Gent, ‘De tijd van de koningen en de profeten’, in C. Tümpel et al., Het Oude Testament in de schilderkunst van de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Joods Historisch Museum) 1991-92, pp. 88-105, esp. p. 96; Y. Bleyerveld, Hoe bedriechlijck dat die vrouwen zijn: Vrouwenlisten in de beeldende kunst in de Nederlanden circa 1350-1650, Leiden 2000, p. 239. The Rijksmuseum panel is one of a number of pictures of the subject executed in the first half of the seventeenth century in Haarlem, where it was a staple in the repertoires of such history painters as Jacob de Wet, Hendrick Pot, Salomon de Bray and De Poorter himself.¹⁰¹⁰C. Tümpel, ‘De oudtestamentische historieschilderkunst in de Gouden Eeuw’, in C. Tümpel et al., Het Oude Testament in de schilderkunst van de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Joods Historisch Museum) 1991-92, pp. 8-25, esp. p. 19; see also Y. Bleyerveld, Hoe bedriechlijck dat die vrouwen zijn: Vrouwenlisten in de beeldende kunst in de Nederlanden circa 1350-1650, Leiden 2000, p. 241, and the examples given there. For other, probably later examples in De Poorter’s oeuvre see W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, IV, Landau/Pfalz 1989, p. 2410, no. 1624 (Kingston, Ontario, Agnes Etherington Art Centre), p. 2412, no. 1635 (with the dealer Johnny Van Haeften, London, 2012). Despite its vertical format, the diagonal composition of this scene with figures kneeling before a person of authority standing on a raised platform can definitely be described as a variant used by De Poorter in his 1636 Sts Paul and Barnabas at Lystra.¹¹¹¹Minneapolis Institute of Art, panel, 55 x 82 cm; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, IV, Landau/Pfalz 1989, p. 2407, no. 1609. The similarities between these two works are pointed out in ibid., p. 2408, no. 1610. It was in turn inspired by Pieter Lastman, notably his Coriolanus and the Roman Women of 1625,¹²¹²Dublin, Trinity College; illustrated in A. Tümpel et al., Pieter Lastman: Leermeester van Rembrandt/Pieter Lastman: The Man Who Taught Rembrandt, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 1991-92, p. 125. and both his versions of Sts Paul and Barnabas at Lystra from 1614 and 1617.¹³¹³Present whereabouts of the 1614 painting unknown; illustrated in A. Tümpel et al., Pieter Lastman: Leermeester van Rembrandt/Pieter Lastman: The Man Who Taught Rembrandt, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 1991-92, p. 20. The 1617 version is in the Amsterdam Museum; illustrated in ibid., p. 107. From the latter painting, in particular, De Poorter appears to have derived a number of the figures for his own 1636 Sts Paul and Barnabas and this Idolatry of King Solomon as well, such as the priest robed in white and wearing a wreath on his head, and the bending man holding a bundle of wood, shown from behind rather than frontally.¹⁴¹⁴These borrowings are pointed out in A.E. Waiboer, ‘Lastmans Opferdarstellungen und ihre weit reichende Wirkung’, in M. Sitt (ed.), Pieter Lastman: In Rembrandts Schatten?, exh. cat. Hamburg (Kunsthalle) 2006, pp. 40-49, esp. p. 47, although oddly no mention is made of De Poorter’s Sts Paul and Barnabas at Lystra. The reliance of the latter painting on Lastman’s treatments of the subject was first indicated by Wheelock in A. Blankert et al., God, Saints & Heroes: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt, exh. cat. Washington (National Gallery of Art)/Detroit (Detroit Institute of Arts)/Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1980-81, p. 158. The men with torches in the present panel – not included in De Poorter’s picture of 1636 – may also have been borrowed from the 1617 Sts Paul and Barnabas by Lastman. The latter’s oeuvre would, furthermore, have been the model for the pastel hues in the two paintings by De Poorter.

In addition, Rembrandt’s work, such as the 1631 Simeon in the Temple,¹⁵¹⁵The Hague, Mauritshuis; illustrated in J. Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, I, The Hague/Boston/London 1982, p. 332. A copy of this painting in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden is attributed to De Poorter; photo RKD. would have provided the example for highlighting the altars and its surrounding figures while leaving the left foreground and the background in shadow. The poses and costumes, in particular the headscarves, of the kneeling woman seen from behind in De Poorter’s Sts Paul and Barnabas and The Idolatry of King Solomon were presumably adopted from Rembrandt’s 1630 etching of Simeon in the Temple,¹⁶¹⁶Illustrated in S.S. Dickey (ed.), The Illustrated Bartsch, L, New York 1993, p. 38, no. 51. whereas the idea of showing the bare heel of her left foot would have come from Lastman’s pictures. The vertical layout of the Rijksmuseum’s Idolatry was probably inspired by either Rembrandt’s painting or print of Simeon in the Temple.

De Poorter’s depiction of a statue of Venus being worshipped departs from most of the sixteenth-century prints of Solomon’s idolatry, in which the heathen god is male. In the related biblical passage, a number of pagan deities are mentioned by name including Ashtoreth (Astarte), the principal female divinity of the Zidonians (I Kings 11:5). The artist’s choice of Venus was based on the identification of this Zidonian goddess with the Roman goddess of love by a number of classical writers, who are extensively paraphrased in a chapter devoted to Ashtoreth in an anonymous book titled 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) which was published in Haarlem in 1646. For example, the author cites Cicero (De natura deorum, bk III, 23), without mention of his source, in the first line of his chapter on Astrot (Ashtoreth), when he describes her as ‘then the last of the four Venuses’.¹⁷¹⁷‘Is dan gheweest de laetste Venus van vieren’ However, the notion advanced by Bleyerveld that De Poorter’s Idolatry of King Solomon and depictions of the subject by other Haarlem artists probably postdate the publication of this book cannot be maintained.¹⁸¹⁸Y. Bleyerveld, Hoe bedriechlijck dat die vrouwen zijn: Vrouwenlisten in de beeldende kunst in de Nederlanden circa 1350-1650, Leiden 2000, p. 241. Given the stylistic similarities to his 1636 Sts Paul and Barnabas, De Poorter’s Idolatry was probably made around the same year.¹⁹¹⁹The date ‘1647’ on a copy after De Poorter’s painting is not likely to reflect the year of the original. The copy is illustrated in the catalogue for the sale, London (Bonham’s), 9 July 2002, no. 123. Moreover, there is at least one treatment of the theme that is not by a Haarlem painter but by the Amsterdam-based Salomon Koninck, which includes a sculpture of Venus and Amor and predates the Heydensche afgoden by two years.²⁰²⁰SK-A-2220. It seems safer to conclude that De Poorter knew of the ancient identification of Ashtoreth with Venus and passed this information on to the anonymous author of the Heydensche afgoden, who according to its introduction was one of his former pupils.²¹²¹The book is dedicated to De Poorter and Pieter de Grebber, from whom the author also received instruction. He is convincingly identified as De Poorter’s pupil Pieter Casteleyn by E.K. Grootes, Heydensche afgoden: Beelden, tempels en offerhanden: Met ‘De vremde ceremonien naer elcks landts vvijse’ (1646), Deventer 1987, p. VI. De Poorter may also have known Philips Galle’s 1565 engraving of Solomon’s idolatry, which in addition to the main statue of a male heathen god shows another one of the Venus pudica type in the background.²²²²Illustrated in M. Sellink and M. Leesberg, The New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450-1700: Philips Galle, I, ed. M. Leesberg, Rotterdam 2001, p. 186, no. 129.

De Poorter’s use of a Venus and Amor and the bared breasts of the woman standing next to Solomon obviously emphasize the role lust played in the king’s downfall. The author of the Heydensche afgoden presented the story not only as a warning to the contemporary reader against the dangerous effects of desire, but also of insobriety: ‘Thus one sees that although Solomon had acquired supreme wisdom from God Almighty it had abandoned him because of his voluptuousnesses, which one still sees and perceives daily by many who become just like beasts without sense or reason through excessive drunkenness and whoring, forgetting all religion and civil conduct, changing into filthy pigs through Circe’s potion.’²³²³E.K. Grootes, Heydensche afgoden: Beelden, tempels en offerhanden: Met ‘De vremde ceremonien naer elcks landts wijse’ (1646), Deventer 1987, p. 22: 'Aldus siet men hoe wel Salomon de opperste wijsheydt van Godt Almachtigh hadde verworven, datse hem verlaten wegen zyne wellustigheyden, dat men noch dagelijcks aen vele siet ende bespeurt, die door excessive dronckenschappen ende hoererye, gantsch als Beesten sonder verstandt ende reden worden, verghetende alle Godts-dienst ende borgherlicke ommegangh, veranderende door Circes Toverdranck in vuyle Verckens.’

Technical examination has revealed that the panel has been cut down.²⁴²⁴See Technical notes. Comparison with two contemporary copies after this picture that are on the same scale indicates that about 8 centimetres have been removed from the top and 7.5 centimetres from the right side.²⁵²⁵Present whereabouts unknown; illustrated in the catalogue for the sale, London (Bonham’s), 9 July 2002, no. 123 (panel, 69.1 x 55.9 cm), and the catalogue for the sale, London (Sotheby’s), 24 April 2008, no. 392 (panel, 70.1 x 55.9 cm). A painting of the idolatry of King Solomon by De Poorter, with virtually the same dimensions as the Rijksmuseum work in its present state, was in the 1866 sale of Johanna Carolina Tollens.²⁶²⁶See Provenance (62 x 48 cm versus the present picture’s size of 62 x 48.5 cm).

Jonathan Bikker, 2023

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, IV, Landau/Pfalz 1989, pp. 2386, 2408, no. 1610, with earlier literature; J. van Gent, ‘De tijd van de koningen en de profeten’, in C. Tümpel et al., Het Oude Testament in de schilderkunst van de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Joods Historisch Museum) 1991-92, pp. 88-105, esp. p. 96; Van Gent in ibid., p. 248, no. 30; Y. Bleyerveld, Hoe bedriechlijck dat die vrouwen zijn: Vrouwenlisten in de beeldende kunst in de Nederlanden circa 1350-1650, Leiden 2000, p. 241; A.E. Waiboer, ‘Lastmans Opferdarstellungen und ihre weit reichende Wirkung’, in M. Sitt (ed.), Pieter Lastman: In Rembrandts Schatten?, exh. cat. Hamburg (Kunsthalle) 2006, pp. 40-49, esp. p. 47

1887, p. 134, no. 1124; 1903, p. 211, no. 1898; 1934, p. 226, no. 1898; 1960, p. 246, no. 1898; 1976, p. 451, no. A 757

Jonathan Bikker, 2023, 'Willem de Poorter, The Idolatry of King Solomon (I Kings 11:4-8), c. 1636 - c. 1640', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5077