TO UNDERSTAND THE SCENE

This judgment can be mistaken for the massacre of the Innocents related in chapter 2 of the Gospel of Matthew.

Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16)

The scene shows some soldiers cutting the throats of children and mothers mad with terror; the king witnesses the scene. The children are often numerous and actually killed.

The Judgment of Solomon; RAPHAEL; 1518; fresco; Raphael’s Loggia; Vatican

Web Gallery of Art

The First Book of Kings, chapter 3

King Solomon, David’s son, reigned in Jerusalem around 950 BC. Like a good king, he delivered judgments with wisdom.

Two prostitutes apply to him; they have each a child the same age but one is dead, choked during his sleep. Each of them claims she is the mother of the living child. Solomon then asks:

Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword before the king. And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other.

Then spoke the woman whose child was living to the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no way slay it. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor yours, but divide it.

Then the king answered and said, Give her the living child, and in no way slay it: she is his mother. (1 Kings 3:24-27)

Solomon’s Judgment

Solomon at the centre of the composition judges like God on the day of the Last Judgment but the bad woman is not always on his left.

The good mother becomes the centre of the composition. It is she who urges the king to speak.

This time, the central character is the soldier who is about to strike the child. The good mother stops his gesture; the king observes.

Two medieval representations with the same king, the same soldier but with a great difference in the women’s attitudes.

Solomon’s wisdom is proverbial

Political wisdom since he possesses intelligence and discernment of good and evil to govern the people. But Solomon’s wisdom extends to many other domains since he “spoke three thousand proverbs…

And he spoke also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes.” (The First Book of Kings 4:32-33)

It was thought he had written several books of the Bible, among them the Book of Wisdom and the Book of Proverbs.

But according to these texts, his love for women led him astray from God. A man famous for his wisdom lets himself be seduced to distraction…

Good Justice

To deliver a good judgmentTo judge according to wisdom and not according to a simple code. This power and this quality have been claimed by European sovereigns. In this picture from a school book of the 19^th century representing King St Louis, Solomon’s heritage can be recognised.

In the same way,