{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O310556"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O310556/"}},"images":null,"see_also":null},"record":{"systemNumber":"O310556","accessionNumber":"REPRO.1885-47","objectType":"Relief","titles":[{"title":"Plaster cast of relief by Artus Quellinus","type":"generic title"}],"summaryDescription":"This relief shows the Judgment of King Solomon. It is a copy from the decoration by Artus Quellinus for the Stadhuis, Amsterdam. The relief sculpture was placed in the west wall of the Vierschaar (the court of justice), in which criminals were condemned in public ceremonies. It is one of three reliefs depicting examples of justice from classical history and the bible. It was placed with the other two reliefs of the Magnanimity of the Greek Selecus (REPRO.1883-31) and the Justice of the Consul of Junius Brutus above the seats of the judges and sheriff, opposite the entrance to the Vierschaar. The cast, acquired in exchange with the Museum of Industrial Arts, Haarlem, was taken from a terracotta design for this sculpture, which is now in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.","physicalDescription":"Relief showing the Judgment of King Solomon. King Solomon is seated in the throne at the centre of the relief. When two women come to him, both claiming to be the mother of a child, he proclaims that the child should be physically divided in two. The two women in the relief plead before him, one of them holding the child upside-down before a man wielding a knife, who is ready to render King Solomon's judgment.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Unknown","id":"A1848"},"association":{"text":"caster","id":"AAT25257"},"note":""},{"name":{"text":"Artus Quellinus","id":"A23179"},"association":{"text":"maker","id":"AAT251917"},"note":"original"}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"plaster","id":"AAT14922"}],"techniques":[{"text":"cast","id":"x32615"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Plaster cast","categories":[{"text":"Sculpture","id":"THES48896"},{"text":"Copies and Facsimiles","id":"THES253072"},{"text":"Plaster Cast","id":"THES270451"}],"styles":[{"text":"Baroque","id":"AAT21147"},{"text":"Victorian","id":"AAT21232"}],"collectionCode":{"text":"SCP","id":"THES48600"},"images":[],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"SM014","id":"THES396451"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Relief","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Netherlands","id":"x29020"},"association":{"text":"cast","id":"AAT53104"},"note":""},{"place":{"text":"Amsterdam","id":"x28722"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":"original"}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"before 1885","earliest":null,"latest":"1884-12-31"},"association":{"text":"cast","id":"AAT53104"},"note":""},{"date":{"text":"after 1648","earliest":"1649-01-01","latest":null},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":"original"}],"associatedObjects":[{"object":{"text":"REPRO.1883-31","id":"O310571"},"association":""},{"object":{"text":"REPRO.1883-29","id":"O310572"},"association":""},{"object":{"text":"REPRO.1883-28","id":"O310573"},"association":""},{"object":{"text":"REPRO.1883-25","id":"O310574"},"association":""},{"object":{"text":"REPRO.1883-24","id":"O310575"},"association":""},{"object":{"text":"REPRO.1883-23","id":"O310576"},"association":""},{"object":{"text":"REPRO.1883-22","id":"O310577"},"association":""},{"object":{"text":"REPRO.1885-40","id":"O310558"},"association":""},{"object":{"text":"REPRO.1885-42","id":"O310557"},"association":""}],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"39","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"approximately","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"69","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"approximately","note":""},{"dimension":"Weight","value":"24.0","unit":"kg","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"This cast, acquired in exchange with the Museum of Industrial Arts, Haarlem, was taken from a terracotta design for this sculpture, which is now in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.\n\nHistorical significance: The building was praised as 'the eighth wonder of the world', by the poet Joost van den Vondel in his epitaph for van Campen (Schoten 2010, 5).\r\n\r\n'This collection of terracotta models and studies is quite exceptional in its size, variety and artistic quality; taken in conjunction with the sculpture in and on the building and the original bills and accounts, it provides a rare look behind the scenes in an eminent seventeenth-century sculptor's workshop' (Schoten 2010, 6).","historicalContext":"Artus Quellinus (1609-1668) is considered to be the greatest Flemish sculptor of the Baroque period. His sculpture was strongly influenced by Northern classicism, and his nude sculptures reveal his familiarity with the art of Peter Paul Rubens, and that of the sculptural school which surrounded him, including the artists Hans van Mildert and Lucas Faydherbe. After early training with his father, Erasmus Quellinus (1584-1640), in 1634 he travelled to Italy to work in the studio of François du Quesnoy (1594-1643), a Flemish sculptor working in Rome. \r\n\r\nQuellinus returned to Antwerp by 1639, and in 1648, he was commissioned to design decorations for the façades, walls, ceilings, and chimney pieces of the new Amsterdam Stadhius (now the Royal Palace), which was constructed by the architect Jacob van Campen (1595-1657). Quellinus' assistants included Rombout Berhults, Gabriel Grupello, Bartolomeus Eggers, and Artus Quellinus II, his first cousin. \r\n\r\nThe Amsterdam city council envisioned that the Dam Square surrounding the new Stadhuis would rival the Campus Martius in ancient Rome and the Piazza San Marco in Venice in physical grandeur. The paintings and sculptures in the Stadhuis would represent allegorical glorifications of Amsterdam's republican-minded government, and they would be based on the Bible and on texts by Livy and Cicero. Schoten writes that Quellinus' programme symbolised 'peace, prosperity, and Amsterdam's pivotal position in the world' (2010, 15). \r\n\r\nThe present sculpture is from the Vierschaar (the court of justice), in which criminals were condemned in public ceremonies. This panel of the Judgment of King Solomon is one of three reliefs depicting examples of justice from classical history and the bible. It was placed with the other two reliefs of the Magnanimity of the Greek Selecus (REPRO.1883-31) and the Justice of the Consul of Junius Brutus above the seats of the judges and sheriff, opposite the entrance to the Vierschaar.","briefDescription":"Relief, the Judgement of King Solomon, plaster cast, Netherlands, 19th century, original by Artus Quellinus, from the Royal Palace of Amsterdam, Netherlands, 17th century","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Hans Vlieghe and Iris Kockelbergh. \"Quellinus.\" <i>Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online</i>. 17 Mar. 2011 <http:\n\nhttp://web.archive.org/web/20230112101044/https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/display/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000070365"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Schoten, Frits. <u>Artus Quellinus: Sculptor of Amsterdam</u>. Amsterdam: Nieuw Amsterdam Press, 2010."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Colman, Pierre. <u>La sculpture au siècle de Rubens dans les Pay-Bas méridionaux et la principauté de Liège</u>. Bruxelles: Musée d'Art Ancien, 1977."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Fremantle, Katharine. <u>The Baroque Town Hall of Amsterdam</u>.  Utrecht: Haentjens Dekker & Gumbert, 1959."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Bedaux, Jan Baptist. 'In Search for Simplicity: Interpreting the Amsterdam Town Hall'. In Selig, Karl-Ludwig ed., <u>Polyanthea: Essays on Art and Literature in Honor of William Sebastian Heckscher</u>. The Hague: Van der Heijden Publisher, 1993, pp. 37-41."}],"production":"19th-century plaster cast after 17th-century Dutch original.","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":["1 Kings 3:16-28"],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["REPRO.1885-47"],"accessionNumberNum":"47","accessionNumberPrefix":"REPRO","accessionYear":1885,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":["2019LW8793"],"recordModificationDate":"2025-04-22","recordCreationDate":"2009-06-24","availableToBook":false}}