Modelled and fired. The background figures are generally executed in very low relief (schiacciato), with those in the foreground modelled in greater depth. Tool marks and fingerprints can still be discerned in some of the more schematically rendered passages of the background. Elsewhere the details are instead highly refined, with modelling traces obscured or eliminated altogether.

The relief was once broken in numerous pieces but later restored. Two major lacunae, far left and far right, were filled with plaster and retouched. The executioner’s right arm is missing, as is the nose of Zaleucus’s son

Commissioned by the City of Amsterdam, c. 1651;¹¹Probably commissioned together with the two other Justice reliefs for the Vierschaar. Of these three works, only the model of the Brutus relief is listed in the town hall account books (BK-AM-51-21), and was payed for on 11 April 1652, see Stadsarchief Amsterdam (hereafter: SAA), archive 5039 (Thesaurie Ordinaris), inv. no. 175, no. 4 (also mentioned on no. 6). See . 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. 48. 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).  

Object number: BK-AM-51-23

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.

The present relief of the Magnanimity of Zaleucus 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 Magnanimity of Zaleucus 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 (bailiff) 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: one scene from the Bible, the Judgement of Solomon (BK-AM-51-22), and two scenes from classical antiquity, the present Magnanimity of Zaleucus, and the Judgement of Brutus (BK-AM-51-21). 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 Magnanimity of Zaleucus reminds the beholder that all people are subject to the law (excepting the judge himself). Some believe this theme perfectly illustrates the principle of impartiality, while others see it as conveying the importance of preserving the freedom to interpret the same law in various ways, depending on the context.²⁷²⁷M. Moelands and T. de Smidt (eds.), Weegschaal en zwaard: De verbeelding van recht en gerechtigheid in Nederland, The Hague 1999, p. 46. Valerius Maximus’s Facta et dicta memorabilia (first century AD) recounts the classical history of Zaleucus – a Greek lawgiver from the seventh century BC, known for his strict and conservative laws²⁸²⁸C. Nils-Robert, La Justice dans ses décors (XVème-XVIème siècles), Geneva 2006, p. 87. – and his son (Book 5, Chapter 8,1). One of Zaleucus’s rulings concerns adultery, punishable with blindness by gouging out the eyes. First to be sentenced for this crime was his own son. Despite pleas from members of his court, Zaleucus refuses to spare his only child and resolutely chooses to enforce the law. To avoid subjecting his son to total blindness, however, he decrees that he himself is to share the penalty with his son.²⁹²⁹M. Moelands and T. de Smidt (eds.), Weegschaal en zwaard: De verbeelding van recht en gerechtigheid in Nederland, The Hague 1999, no. 7. Consequently, one eye is gouged out of both the son and father. Jacob Vennekool’s (1631-1673) print book on the Amsterdam town hall from 1661[Jacob Vennekool, Afbeelding van’t stadt huys van Amsterdam: In dartigh coopere plaaten, Amsterdam 1661, pp. 58-59.] includes an engraving of Quellinus’s relief, accompanied by the caption ius contra iura (law against law), thus inspiring readers to debate the consequences of sometimes overly strict laws.³⁰³⁰M. Moelands and T. de Smidt (eds.), Weegschaal en zwaard: De verbeelding van recht en gerechtigheid in Nederland, The Hague 1999, no. 7.

The present relief, with Zaleucus seated in the middle, depicts the dramatic moment just before the gouging out of his eye, with the suspense expressed in various places. In the background, one man raises his arms in an expression of distress. In front of him, an old man with a beard tugs at his own tunic, as if personally undergoing Zaleucus’s suffering. In the middle ground, two men flanking Zaleucus witness his judgment, both with hands clasped. Positioned as such, they create a symmetrical axis around the central figure, who undergoes his self-appointed fate with arms extended at either side and fists clenched. Paradoxically, this gesture can express either desolation or a resistance to suffering. Zaleucus’s son, in his turn, assumes a pose of total acceptance, likewise with outstretched arms but with the hands clasped. Although seated outside the scene’s middle, his pose mirrors that of his father. As with several other works attributed to Artus Quellinus (cf. BK-2012-11), one discerns the unorthodox positioning of the fingers of intertwined hands: instead of alternating, the interlocked fingers of the right and left hand sometimes enclose two fingers together. Also noteworthy is the repeated application of the same face for various figures, albeit from different perspectives. This can be observed, for example, with the bald, long-bearded elderly man, who appears three times in the same scene.

On the present terracotta relief, the relation between the architecture and the figures differs somewhat from that of the marble. The figures are more corpulent, with the angle of the faces slightly altered. Furthermore, the figure far right on the terracotta is absent from the marble. Quellinus drew his inspiration from classical Roman portraits known to him during his time in Rome. Zaleucus’s contorted face is derived from the famed Laocoön group.³¹³¹J. Gabriëls, Artus Quellien, de Oude, “Kunstryck belthouwer”, Antwerp 1930, p. 108; K. Fremantle, The Baroque Town Hall of Amsterdam, Utrecht 1959, p. 159.

The Brutus relief’s authenticity (BK-AM-51-21) as an autograph work by Quellinus has never been questioned. The same cannot be said of the Zaleucus and Solomon reliefs: as early as 1900, both were qualified as works by studio assistants based on their less refined execution.³²³²A. 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. Fifteen years later, in her monograph on the elder Quellinus, Gabriels confirmed these earlier attributions, further suggesting that the terracotta model for the Judgment of Solomon was in fact a preliminary sketch modelled by workshop assistants. She believed that the master’s definitive, finished work had been lost.³³³³J. Gabriëls, Artus Quellien, de Oude, “Kunstryck belthouwer”, Antwerp 1930, p. 104. Leeuwenberg followed suit, likewise ruling out both the present relief and that of Solomon (BK-AM-51-22) as autograph works, but without further elucidation.³⁴³⁴J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 281. On scarcely convincing grounds, Vlaardingerbroek more recently posited that two different designers were involved: Van Campen, as the final decision maker for the visualization of the iconographic programme,³⁵³⁵P. Vlaardingerbroek, Het paleis van de Republiek, Zwolle 2011, p. 121. and Artus Quellinus.³⁶³⁶P. Vlaardingerbroek, Het paleis van de Republiek, Zwolle 2011, pp. 119-20. Nevertheless, the deviating, frontal composition of the Judgment of Solomon arises from its central placement on the Vierschaar wall and does not necessarily betray the hand of another designer.

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.³⁷³⁷Pit 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 present model for the Zaleucus relief and the other for the Brutus relief, 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.³⁸³⁸M. 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. They are most likely identifiable as the two reliefs held in Valerius Röver’s art cabinet in the first half of the eighteenth century, described in a 1730-38 inventory as ‘2 bas-reliefs by Quellinus, the original after which he made the same in marble in the Town Hall in the vierschaar in Amsterdam: representing the Histories of Zaleucus and of Brutus, with his Sons, height 2 feet 3 thumbs, wide 22 thumbs’.³⁹³⁹2 basrelieven van Quellin, de originele waar na hij dezelve in marmer heeft gemaakt op het Stadhuijs in de vierschaar te Amstd:. verbeeldende de Historien van Seleucus en van Brutus, met zijne Zoonen, hoog 2 voet 3 duijm, breet 22 duijm. (2 bas-reliefs by Quellin, the original after which he has made the same in marble at the Town Hall in the vierschaar in Amstd.: depicting the Histories of Zaleucus and of Brutus, with his Sons, height 2 feet 3 thumbs, width 22 thumbs); J.G. van Gelder, ‘“Beelden en rariteijten” in de verzameling van Valerius Röver’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 31 (1980), pp. 341-54, esp. p. 344. Van Gelder maintained that these are the reliefs in the Rijksmuseum.⁴⁰⁴⁰J.G. van Gelder, ‘“Beelden en rariteijten” in de verzameling van Valerius Röver’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 31 (1980), pp. 341-54, esp. p. 345. Their divergent dimensions preclude a positive identification, however, while those of the two pieces sold in 1990 correspond well.

Unlike the Judgment of Solomon, with its more tightly organized composition governed by the architecture in the background and the concise placement of the figures, the Brutus and Zaleucus reliefs are more ‘atmospheric’. This effect was intentional: in the shallow space of the Vierschaar, the central relief with Solomon's judgment is firmly situated in the surrounding physical architecture. The two flanking scenes, by contrast, are airier in nature, thus creating greater depth towards the sides. With the Zaleucus relief, the beholder is confronted with a multitude of figures forming three concentric half-circles. These begin with the first three figures in the foreground (the doctor, Zaleucus and his son), subsequently expanded with the two men with clasped hands, and the executioner. The third and final half-circle comprises the remaining figures, rendered in very low relief. Those in the background gradually disappear into the depth. Standing in the right top corner is the scene’s sole female figure, representing the personification of Justice. Complementing the composition are the actual, living spectators, standing opposite the relief, thus forming a complete circle.⁴¹⁴¹P. Vlaardingerbroek, Het paleis van de Republiek, Zwolle 2011, pp. 119-20.

Wendy Frère and Frits Scholten, 2024

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 281, with earlier literature; J.G. van Gelder, ‘“Beelden en rariteijten” in de verzameling Valerius Röver’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 31 (1980), pp. 341-54, esp. pp. 344-45, fig. 4; M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 48, 50, no. 90; 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, 50 (no. 62a); 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, pp. 842 (fig. 2); F. Scholten, Artus Quellinus: Sculptor of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2010, pp. 28, 30, fig. 37; P. Vlaardingerbroek, Het paleis van de Republiek, Zwolle 2011, pp. 117, 120

F. Scholten and W. Frère, 2024, 'workshop of Artus (I) Quellinus, The Magnanimity of Zaleucus, 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/20017590