Modelled in relief and fired. Tool marks and fingerprints can be discerned in some of the schematically rendered passage. In other places, by contrast, details have been very precisely executed, with traces of modelling tools etc. muffled or entirely eliminated.

The executioner’s left arm is missing, as are the right leg of the living child, the point of Solomon’s sceptre, the kneeling mother’s left arm, and the head and right arm of the second mother. Hairline fractures can be discerned across the surface of the entire relief.

Commissioned by the City of Amsterdam, c. 1651;¹¹Probably commissioned together with the two other justice-reliefs for the Vierschaar. Of the three, only the model for the relief with Brutus (BK-AM-51-21) is mentioned in a list of works for which Quellinus was paid. That payment occured on 11 April 1652, see Stadsarchief Amsterdam (hereafter: SAA), archive 5039 (Thesaurie Ordinaris), inv. no. 624, no. 4 (also mentioned on list no. 6). from the artist,²²K. Fremantle, ‘The Fountains Designed for Van Campen’s Amsterdam Town Hall and Quellien’s Models for Them’, Album discipulorum aangeboden aan J.G. van Gelder ter gelegenheid van zijn 60ste verjaardag (Utrechtse Kunsthistorische Studiën 7), Utrecht 1963, pp. 101-18, esp. p. 104 (note 15): dewijl zijn werk lootse nu affgebroken wordt dat haer Edele [burgemeesters] sullen laten affhalen de modellen vande beelden die hij ten behoeve dezer Stede gemaeckt heeft (while his workshop is being closed, that her Noble [burgomasters] shall have the models of the sculptures that he made on behalf of this City collected). See also H.J. Wiggers, ‘De stad Amsterdam en haar vroegste beeldencollectie’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 60-75, esp. p. 62 (referring to A.W. Kroon, Het Amsterdamsche stadhuis (thans Paleis), 1625-1700: Zijne geschiedenis naar onuitgegeven officiële bronnen bewerkt, Amsterdam 1867, p. 138). transferred to the Town Hall (now Royal Palace) at Dam Square, Amsterdam, 1664;³³H.J. Wiggers, ‘De stad Amsterdam en haar vroegste beeldencollectie’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 60-75, esp. pp. 62-64. The models were initially kept in the Thesaurie Ordinaris (Treasury) of the town hall. Around 1700, most were moved to the art cabinet in the kunstkamer (art chamber) on the third floor, see Wegwyzer door Amsterdam, Amsterdam (Nicolaas ten Hoorn) 1713, p. 446. From 1768 on, the task of overseeing the models’ preservation was assigned to the Stadstekenacademie (City Drawing Academy), also located in the aforementioned kunstkamer. In 1769, academy director Cornelis Ploos van Amstel compiled an inventory of all sculptures in the art chamber. This inventory also included Quellinus’s models, see SAA, archive H. 86.003 (Library), Cornelis Ploos van Amstel, Notitie van Boetseersels en Pleisterbeelden enz bewaard wordende op de kunstkamer van het stadhuijs der stad Amsterdam (January 1769). From November 1796 to April 1806, the Stadstekenacademie was obliged to (temporarily) vacate the town hall art chamber on the orders of the French occupier. During this period, it is not known where the models were stored, though presumably they remained in the town hall, albeit without oversight. In April 1806, the models were moved to the rariteitenkamer (curiosity chamber), also called the Diplomatieke Bibliotheek (Diplomatic Library). transferred to the Stadstekenacademie (at two or three successive locations), Amsterdam, 1808;⁴⁴The collection was moved in 1808, when Louis Napoleon took up residence in the town hall. H.J. Wiggers, ‘De stad Amsterdam en haar vroegste beeldencollectie’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 60-75, esp. pp. 67-68. See also SAA, archive 265 (Stadstekenacademie), inv. nos. 1-4 and 6-54. transferred to the Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten (old Exchange of Hendrick de Keyser), Amsterdam, 1821;⁵⁵H.J. Wiggers, ‘De stad Amsterdam en haar vroegste beeldencollectie’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 60-75, esp. p. 70, referring to SAA, archive 265 (Stadstekenacademie), inv. no. 4 (minutes of 1818-1821). transferred to the Oude Mannenhuis, Amsterdam 1837;⁶⁶H.J. Wiggers, ‘De stad Amsterdam en haar vroegste beeldencollectie’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 60-75, esp. pp. 70-71. See also SAA, archive PA 681 (Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten), inv. no. 7. transferred to the Town Hall at the Prinsenhof, Amsterdam, 1878;⁷⁷H.J. Wiggers, ‘De stad Amsterdam en haar vroegste beeldencollectie’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 60-75, esp. p. 72. See also SAA, archive H. 86.003 (Library). on loan to the museum, since 1887⁸⁸See SAA, archive H. 86.002 (Library). transferred to the Amsterdam Historisch Museum (now Amsterdam Museum), 1972

Object number: BK-AM-51-22

Credit line: On loan from the City of Amsterdam

The great wealth and might of the city Amsterdam – the most important merchant city of the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century – manifested itself in grand public works and countless other public and private buildings. This was especially true of the new town hall on the Dam Square, for which initial plans were already being made as early as 1639. The building’s design was aimed to reflect the power and prosperity that Amsterdam had come to acquire since the closing of the Scheldt in 1585, an event that cost Antwerp its leading economic position in the Low Countries.⁹⁹P. Vlaardingerbroek, Het paleis van de Republiek, Zwolle 2011, pp. 21-22. The existing town hall, which dated back to the Middle Ages, had become too small to accommodate the rapidly growing civic governmental apparatus and was therefore to be replaced by a new and spacious ‘urban palace’. To carry out this ambitious plan, the city’s burgomasters chose the architect Jacob van Campen (1596-1657).¹⁰¹⁰P. Vlaardingerbroek, Het paleis van de Republiek, Zwolle 2011, p. 36.

In its design, decoration and style, the new Amsterdam town hall was to glorify both the city and its governing council by mirroring illustrious examples from antiquity and its own day: the ancient Roman Republic and the modern Republic of Venice.¹¹¹¹K. Fremantle and W. Halsema-Kubes, Beelden Kijken: De kunst van Quellien in het Paleis op de Dam/Focus on Sculpture: Quellien’s Art in the Palace on the Dam, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Royal Palace) 1977, p. 9; F. Scholten, Artus Quellinus: Sculptor of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2010, p. 15. Designated as the central themes were the three mainstays of Amsterdam’s economic success: good and fair governance, peace and prosperity. The Amsterdam city regents were bestowed the honorary title of vredesvader (father of peace), an appellation alluding to the seminal role these men played in negotiating the Peace of Münster, the treaty of 1648 that ended the war with the Spanish and signalled a new period of unparalleled prosperity.¹²¹²K. Fremantle and W. Halsema-Kubes, Beelden Kijken: De kunst van Quellien in het Paleis op de Dam/Focus on Sculpture: Quellien’s Art in the Palace on the Dam, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Royal Palace) 1977, p. 16. Through the classicist style of its architecture and the themes depicted in painted and sculptural decoration, this new monumental addition to the city was meant to convey Amsterdam’s standing as a worthy successor to ancient Rome, the geographic source of the Roman Republic’s past power and glory.¹³¹³P. Vlaardingerbroek, Het paleis van de Republiek, Zwolle 2011, p. 68. Albeit less explicitly, Amsterdam also wished to mirror itself on the Republic of Venice. Both cities had begun as fishing villages and grown to become powerful merchant centres with international allure. Both cities also boasted a stable government firmly grounded on republican principles.¹⁴¹⁴F. Scholten, Artus Quellinus: Sculptor of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2010, p. 14. Lastly, the decoration programme of the new Amsterdam town hall drew a parallel between the Israelites in the Bible and the present-day inhabitants of the Dutch Republic. Just as the Israelites – also long oppressed by a heathen religion – were led out of Egypt, so too had the Dutch liberated themselves from the yoke of the Spanish king and Catholic idolatry. The inhabitants of the Dutch Republic had God to thank for their freedom and fortune.¹⁵¹⁵P. Vlaardingerbroek, Het paleis van de Republiek, Zwolle 2011, p. 68. All of these associations were to be unified in the new town hall’s realization, made manifest for both the city’s own burghers but also countless visitors from abroad.

In 1648, the Flemish sculptor Artus Quellinus I (1609-1668) – then one of the most successful and talented sculptors in the Low Countries¹⁶¹⁶Prior to travelling to Italy around 1635, Quellinus had already produced work for Stadholder Frederick Henry, see K. Fremantle, The Baroque Town Hall of Amsterdam, Utrecht 1959, pp. 133-34. Upon returning to Antwerp in 1639, his career took off. One important commission he received, just prior to moving to Amsterdam, was a monumental tomb for Count Engelbert van Immerzeel and Helena van Montmorency (Bokhoven, Sint-Antonius Abtkerk), see F. Scholten, Artus Quellinus: Sculptor of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2010, pp. 9-10. – was hired to devise the sculptural programme of the planned town hall. Having been trained as he sculptor by his father in the Baroque milieu of Rubens in Antwerp, Quellinus travelled to Rome in 1635, where he entered the studio of the Flemish sculptor François du Quesnoy (1594-1643).¹⁷¹⁷K. Fremantle, The Baroque Town Hall of Amsterdam, Utrecht 1959, p. 147. In the words of Du Quesnoy’s biographer, Sandrart: ‘Quellinus made himself very useful when in Rome and there he studied the art of Antiquity with success.’¹⁸¹⁸Joachim von Sandrart, Teutsche Academie der edlen Bau- Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste (ed. C. Klemm), Nördlingen 1994 (original ed. Frankfurt 1675-79), p. 351; K. Fremantle, The Baroque Town Hall of Amsterdam, Utrecht 1959, p. 148. See also C. Theuerkauff, ‘Enkele kanttekeningen bij Artus Quellinus en de ‘antiche Academien’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 50 (2002), pp. 308-19, esp. p. 310. Accordingly, the sculptor’s work displays both elements of Du Quesnoy’s austere Classicism and Rubens’s Baroque. Yet the Amsterdam burgomasters’ decision to place the town hall’s sculptural decoration in Quellinus’s charge was not simply based on his style and qualities as a sculptor: his international experience, knowledge of antique sculpture and ability to run a large studio were also important factors.¹⁹¹⁹F. Scholten, Artus Quellinus: Sculptor of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2010, p. 12.

The architect of the planned town hall, Jacob van Campen, was ‘artistic director’ of the decoration programme of the building’s exterior and interior in close consultation with his patrons. A number of fairly primitive pen-and-ink sketches and discernible details on the wooden, scale-model maquette show that, especially in this regard, Van Campen had very clear ideas of his own.²⁰²⁰H. Vreeken, ‘Quellinus’ boetseersels voor het zeventiende-eeuwse stadhuis op de Dam’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 38-59, esp. pp. 40-41. Quellinus’s task was to transform these ideas and simple sketches into clear and detailed three-dimensional designs. Several terracottas in the Rijksmuseum illustrate this specific stage of the design process. Presented for approval to both Van Campen and the burgomasters charged with making the final decision, these models can be described as vidimi (vidimus (Lat.) = we have seen) in the purest sense. A subsequent stage in this process entailed the detailed realization of these sketch models into working models – scale models, possibly followed by so-called modelli grandi – to be used in the studio for the final execution of monumental sculptures in marble and bronze.

Given the monumental scale of sculptural production accomplished in a relatively short period of time, Quellinus is certain to have had a large workshop to accommodate his many assistants. While information regarding the distribution of tasks remains scant, the diverse modelling on the surviving terracottas rules out the possibility of a single sculptor working on his own. Variations in the level of finishing can also be observed. The first group of terracottas can be described as bozzetti: loosely modelled sketches functioning as preliminary, plastic explorations of a theme or composition (cf. BK-AM-51-10). The second group consists of finished modelli – the aforementioned vidimi – from which the cast replicas were made that served as models in the studio. This category of works can sometimes be identified as such by measuring marks: points, lines and grids drawn in the wet clay to facilitate the design’s reproduction and enlargement in marble or bronze.²¹²¹H. Vreeken, ‘Quellinus’ boetseersels voor het zeventiende-eeuwse stadhuis op de Dam’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 38-59, esp. pp. 42-43. The third and final group consists of various replicas likewise made in Quellinus’s workshop but ultimately destined for the free market, e.g. as council members’ gifts to friends or as souvenirs privately commissioned by the burgomasters and their retinue to commemorate their role in the building of the town hall.²²²²H. Vreeken, ‘Quellinus’ boetseersels voor het zeventiende-eeuwse stadhuis op de Dam’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 38-59, esp. p. 44.

This relief with the Judgement of Salomon belongs to a group of terracotta sketches and models made by the Antwerp sculptor Artus Quellinus I (1609-1668) and his assistants in preparation for the sculptural decoration of the new Amsterdam town hall, today the Royal Palace on the Dam Square (for an extensive history of the town hall, its significance and decoration programme, see ‘Context’). After the project’s completion, Quellinus’s Amsterdam studio was closed in 1664. At this time, the city’s burgomasters ordered that all of the remaining works and presentation models be transferred to the new town hall. With this move, the ensemble of fifty-one pieces officially became the property of the city of Amsterdam.²³²³A.W. Kroon, Het Amsterdamsche stadhuis (thans Paleis), 1625-1700: Zijne geschiedenis naar onuitgegeven officiële bronnen bewerkt, Amsterdam 1867, p. 138. A number were transferred to the Rijksmuseum in 1887/88 on a long-term basis. All other works are today preserved at the Amsterdam Museum.

The Judgement of Salomon was made in preparation for the sculptural decoration of the Vierschaar – the seat of the municipal tribunal – in the new Amsterdam town hall, now the Royal Palace on the Dam Square. Iconographically, the sculptural programme of this spacious front hall on the building’s ground floor was designed to convey its primary function: to pronounce the death sentence.²⁴²⁴K. Fremantle, ‘The Open Vierschaar of Amsterdam’s Seventeenth-Century Town Hall as a Setting for the City’s Justice’, Oud Holland 77 (1962), pp. 210-11; H. Vreeken, ‘Quellinus’ boetseersels voor het zeventiende-eeuwse stadhuis op de Dam’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 38-59, esp. pp. 48-49. The city’s burghers were able to watch the process from beneath the building’s arcades on the east (Dam Square) side. Intended not only for public viewing, the iconography also served to inspire the schout (sheriff) and the schepenen (magistrates) to exercise wise and fair judgement.

Starting in the sixteenth but especially in the seventeenth century, scenes centring on themes of justice were used to decorate tribunal courts in the Northern and Southern Netherlands. Drawing on both biblical and classical sources, the chosen representations served to remind the accused party, the tribunal spectators and the judges themselves to observe God’s intervening role in the judicial process.²⁵²⁵C. Nils-Robert, La Justice dans ses décors (XVème-XVIème siècles), Geneva 2006, pp. 60, 62. The Vierschaar in the Amsterdam town hall is adorned with three such exempla iustitiae: two scenes from classical antiquity, the Judgement of Brutus (cf. BK-AM-51-21) and the Magnanimity of Zaleucus (cf. BK-AM-51-23), and one scene from the Bible, as depicted on the present terracotta relief, the Judgement of Solomon. In all three reliefs, a child figures as the central element. This reflects a major idea behind Jacob van Campen’s design for the new Amsterdam town hall: to portray the tribunal body as a wijze ouder (wise parent) charged with overseeing the welfare of the kind (child, i.e. the city’s burghers), if and when deemed necessary.²⁶²⁶M. Moelands and T. de Smidt (eds.), Weegschaal en zwaard: De verbeelding van recht en gerechtigheid in Nederland, The Hague 1999, p. 67.

The Old Testament story of the Judgement of Solomon centres on two women who have each given birth to a child on the same night (1 Kings 3:16-28). When one of the children dies, both mothers claim the living child as their own. Seeking justice, they approach the king of Israel, Solomon, beseeching him to decide who is the rightful mother of the child. In a test to ascertain the truth, the king orders that the child be cut in two. Upon hearing the king’s judgement, one of the women immediately renounces her claim, revealing her motherly devotion and her identity as the bona fide mother. In the sixteenth century and later, the story of Solomon’s wise judgement demonstrated that, in matters of dispute, the king’s judgement was directly inspired by God. In the Amsterdam town hall, King Solomon appears not only in the Judgement of Solomon relief in the Vierschaar – located at the north end of the west wall – but also in a section of the mantlepiece in the Vroedschapskamer (city council chamber).²⁷²⁷J. Huisken et al., Jacob van Campen: Het klassieke ideaal in de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Royal Palace) 1995, p. 215. The king also played a symbolic role in the design of the building itself: in conceiving his plans for the new town hall, the architect Van Campen looked for inspiration to the reconstruction of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem as devised by Juan Bautista Villalpando (1552-1608).²⁸²⁸E.-J. Goossens, ‘De rol van de beeldhouwkunst’, in J. Huisken et al., Jacob van Campen: Het klassieke ideaal in de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Royal Palace) 1995, esp. pp. 212-15.

The present relief shows King Solomon sitting on a high throne with five steps, flanked by seated lions. The back of the throne transforms into a rounded niche, adorned with a scallop shell in the conch and integrated with the architecture of the background. A heavy curtain crowns the entire scene. Solomon leans forward, with his left hand resting on the arm of his throne. With the sceptre in his other hand, he gestures in the direction of the executioner far right, conveying his orders that the living child be cut in two. The executioner looks up at the king, awaiting his judgement. He holds his sword ready, with his right hand raised poised behind the head; with his left hand, he lifts the upturned baby by the leg. The true mother kneels at the foot of Solomon’s throne, seen only from the back: she desperately begs for the king’s mercy, that the child might be spared. She shields her child by clinging to his body with both arms. Behind her lies the second, dead baby on the throne’s bottom step. Far left stands the illegitimate mother, who attempts to impede the other woman’s actions by seizing her left arm. Standing in the left background are the king’s officers, one of whom pulls on his beard as if pondering Solomon’s wise judgement. Unlike the other two reliefs, which entail a large of figures and a semi-circular construction, the relief of King Solomon includes no more than small number of figures arranged in a triangular and almost symmetrical composition, with key players appearing at each of the vortices: king, executioner and the deceitful mother.²⁹²⁹P. Vlaardingerbroek, Het paleis van de Republiek, Zwolle 2011, pp. 119-20. The obvious explanation for this deviation is the relief’s central placement on the Vierschaar’s west wall.

A precise dating for the present terracotta model has not been ascertained. Kroon proposed a dating of 1651 for the model’s execution, and a price of 200 guilders, and a dating for the definitive work in marble of 1652, for an amount 1600 guilders.³⁰³⁰A.W. Kroon, Het Amsterdamsche stadhuis (thans Paleis), 1625-1700: Zijne geschiedenis naar onuitgegeven officiële bronnen bewerkt, Amsterdam 1867, p. 107. As Fremantle noted, however, Quellinus’s account books only mention payments for the terracotta model of the Judgement of Brutus, remitted between 24 October 1651 and 7 March 1652, and the final marble version, remitted on 7 and 25 June 1652.³¹³¹Rijksmuseum, Research Services, Archive Dr Katharine Fremantle, inv. no. 22.4; SAA, archive 5039 (Thesaurie Ordinaris), inv. no. 624, nos. 6 and 11. According to Vlaardingerbroek, the sculptor applied a system of payment annotation also used by Flemish painters from the same period – payment in instalment – no determination can be made regarding the precise time the work was completed. P. Vlaardingerbroek, Het paleis van de Republiek, Zwolle 2011, p. 258 (notes 332, 333). Payments (explicitly) referring to the other two Justice reliefs appear nowhere. In any event, the marble Solomon relief is certain to have stood in its proper place in the Vierschaar no later than 1653, as it is mentioned in a written account of the traveller Robert Bargrave (1628-1661) during his sojourn in Amsterdam in that year.³²³²K. Fremantle, The Baroque Town Hall of Amsterdam, Utrecht 1959, p. 201. The marble is also included in Hubertus Quellinus’s first series of engravings made for his De voornaemste statuen ende ciraten van’t konstryck Stadhuys [...] of 1655.³³³³Hubertus Quellinus, De voornaemste statuen ende ciraten van’t konstryck Stadhuys van Amstelredam’t meeste in marmer ghemaeckt door Artus Quellinus beelthouwer der voorseyde Stadt, geteeckent ende geetst, 2 vols., Amsterdam 1655 and 1663.

The authenticity of the Brutus relief (BK-AM-51-21) has never been questioned. The same cannot be said of the other two reliefs: since 1900, doubt has been expressed as to whether these terracotta models are in fact autograph works by Quellinus.³⁴³⁴A. Pit, ‘De verzameling Hollandsch beeldhouwwerk in het Nederlandsch Museum te Amsterdam’, Bulletin van den Nederlandschen Oudheidkundigen Bond 2 (1900-01), pp. 6-17, esp. p. 8. Because the execution of both the Zaleucus and Solomon reliefs is observably less refined, they are thought to be the work of studio assistants, realized according to the master’s instructions.³⁵³⁵A. Pit, Catalogus van de beeldhouwwerken in het Nederlandsch Museum voor geschiedenis en kunst te Amsterdam, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1915, nos. 278-79; J. Gabriëls, Artus Quellien, de Oude, “Kunstryck belthouwer”, Antwerp 1930, p. 104. In her monograph on Artus Quellinus I, Gabriels reconfirmed previous attributions made some fifteen years before. She went on to suggest that the terracotta model for the Judgement of Solomon was in fact an initial sketch made by Quellinus’s assistants. Moreover, she stated her belief that the definitive, finished model made by the master himself has since been lost.³⁶³⁶J. Gabriëls, Artus Quellien, de Oude, “Kunstryck belthouwer”, Antwerp 1930, p. 104. Leeuwenberg also described the present relief and the model for the Magnanimity of Zaleucus (BK-AM-51-23) as non-autograph works, without further elucidation.³⁷³⁷J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 280. More recently, Vlaardingerbroek argued on scarcely convincing grounds (based on differences in composition and spatial depth) that two different individuals had been involved in the design: Van Campen, as the person chiefly responsible for the visualization of the overall iconographic programme,³⁸³⁸P. Vlaardingerbroek, Het paleis van de Republiek, Zwolle 2011, p. 121. and Quellinus. Nevertheless, the divergent frontal composition of the Judgement of Solomon says more about its central position on the Vierschaar wall as opposed to the possible involvement of a second designer’s hand.³⁹³⁹P. Vlaardingerbroek, Het paleis van de Republiek, Zwolle 2011, pp. 119-20.

While differences can be discerned between the Brutus relief (with its rougher texture and traces of modelling) and the two other Vierschaar representations, these are insufficient to dismiss the essentially autograph nature of all three works, acknowledging that a sharp distinction in the distribution of tasks between the master and his assistants need not necessarily have existed in the studio. Moreover, the negative evaluation of the Zaleucus and Solomon reliefs can also partly be explained by the layer of red paint that once covered their surfaces, masking the subtleties of the modellé.⁴⁰⁴⁰Pit said the following with respect to the reliefs of Zaleucus and Solomon: veel van het slappe effect geweten moet worden aan een later aangebrachte roode verflaag (much of the weak effect must be attributed to the red paint layer applied later), A. Pit, ‘De verzameling Hollandsch beeldhouwwerk in het Nederlandsch Museum te Amsterdam’, Bulletin van den Nederlandschen Oudheidkundigen Bond 2 (1900-01), pp. 6-17, esp. p. 8. Two other terracotta versions, one of the Brutus relief and the other for the Zaleucus, surfaced on the London art market in 1990. These reliefs – highly detailed in their finishing but with no trace of spontaneity or evident markings – can only be studio replicas made for the free market.⁴¹⁴¹M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, p. 196; sale London (Sotheby’s), 13 December 1990, p. 37, no. 55.

An argument for crediting Quellinus with the invention of the Solomon relief is the presence of the Latin inscription A. Q. inv. en F. (Artus Quellinus invenit et fecit) on the engraving of this work by Artus’s younger brother, Hubertus Quellinus. By contrast, Hubertus’s engravings of the Zaleucus and Brutus reliefs merely bear the qualification Fecit. Also noteworthy is the Solomon relief’s resemblance to Rubens’s painting for the Brussels town hall: though destroyed during the French bombardment of the city in the late seventeenth century, this painting was known via copies such as that preserved at the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen.⁴²⁴²Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst, inv. no. KMSsp185. Quellinus continued to maintain close ties with his native city of Antwerp and may have known this painting well, for example, via Boëtius Adamsz Bolswert’s engraving (RP-P-H-O-9). Several key elements from Rubens’s composition can also be observed in the sculptor’s relief: the elevated throne, flanked by lions and transforming into a niche with shell, the curtain hanging above the throne, the kneeling mother seen from behind, the executioner positioned on the king’s left waiting to carry out his judgement with a dog at his feet, and the officer on Solomon’s right, pulling at his beard. As Fremantle rightly observed, the figures in Quellinus’s relief of Solomon – unlike that of Zaleucus and Brutus – are dressed in Southern Netherlandish attire from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, just in Rubens’s paintings.⁴³⁴³K. Fremantle, The Baroque Town Hall of Amsterdam, Utrecht 1959, p. 162. Choosing instead a frontal view for the scene, however, Quellinus distinguished himself from Rubens. Undoubtedly dictated by the relief’s central placement on the west wall of the Vierschaar, this adaptation gave rise to several other modifications. For example, he placed the two mothers in the foreground, thus creating interaction between the two figures. Furthermore, he introduced a basic triangular composition with Solomon at its apex as the dominating figure, a scheme employed by Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) several years earlier.⁴⁴⁴⁴Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. 7277. With these changes, Quellinus gave special emphasis to the notions that Solomon’s wisdom came directly from God and that he placed himself above human emotion. Lastly, it appears Quellinus also consulted the work of his elder brother, the painter Erasmus Quellinus II (1607-1678), borrowing elements from his painting of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba from 1650.⁴⁵⁴⁵Vaduz, Gemäldesammlungen des Fürsten von Liechtenstein, inv. no. 90. See J.-P. De Bruyn, A. Jacobs, S. Vézilier-Dussart (eds.), Erasme Quellin. Dans le sillage de Rubens (1607-1678), Cassel (Musée Départemental de Flandre) 2014, p. 13. Erasmus also painted a Judgement of Solomon, reciprocally inspired by his brother Artus’s sculpted relief. Providing further proof of the two brothers’ strong interaction, this work survives solely in Jacob de Formentrou’s (c. 1620-c. 1679) and Erasmus Quellinus’s painting of an Antwerp art cabinet from 1659.⁴⁶⁴⁶Royal Collection Trust, inv. no. RCIN 404084 see; H. Magnus, ‘Schilders, connoisseurs en hun (Salomons)oordeel: Het schilderijenkabinet (1659) van Jacob de Formentrou en Erasmus II Quellinus’, _De zeventiende eeuw_28 (2012), pp. 40-65.

Wendy Frère and Frits Scholten, 2024

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 280, with earlier literature; M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, no. 91; H. Vreeken, ‘Quellinus’ boetseersels voor het zeventiende-eeuwse stadhuis op de Dam’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 38-59, esp. pp. 42, 50-51 (fig. 62b); H.J. Wiggers, ‘De stad Amsterdam en haar vroegste beeldencollectie’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 60-75; P. Philippot, D. Coekelberghs, P. Loze and D. Vautier, L’Architecture religieuse et la sculpture baroques dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux et la principauté de Liège: 1600-1770, Sprimont 2003, p. 841 (fig. 2); F. Scholten, Artus Quellinus: Sculptor of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2010, pp. 28, 33, fig. 38; P. Vlaardingerbroek, Het paleis van de Republiek, Zwolle 2011, pp. 119-20, 259 (notes 376-77).

F. Scholten and W. Frère, 2024, 'workshop of Artus (I) Quellinus, The Judgement of Solomon, Model for a Relief in the Vierschaar of the Amsterdam Town Hall (now Royal Palace) at Dam Square, Amsterdam, c. 1650 - c. 1652', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200115924