Het oordeel van Salomon van de Gentse Oudburg

This article comments a painting by Gaspar De Crayer, now in the Ghent Museum of Fine Arts, depicting the decision of the Jewish king Solomon in the famous case of two women disputing over a child. Archival documents provide information on the contract between the artist and the magistrate of the Ghent ‘Oudburg’ (Vieuxbourg, ‘Old Borough’), in the first quarter of the 17th century. Links are made to other painted ‘judicial examples’ in the Netherlands and to the special meaning Solomon’s wisdom was given by the Spanish crown.