Workshop Peter Paul Rubens - Oordeel van Salamo - vierschaar Delft

As the frame states, "it was given to the City Hall in 1703 by Ewout van Bleiswijck, the son of the Delft mayor Hendrick van Bleiswijck". Hendrick was buried across the market square in the Old Church on 24 August 1703. This copy, like another in Copenhagen, are both copies of Rubens' original that hung in the Brussels City Hall when it was destroyed in 1695 as a result of the bombardment of Brussels by the French army (though fortunately a print was made of it before that by Boëtius a Bolswert). The date can be made with some accuracy based on the dog's head, which is very like the dog in Rubens' Diana with her nymphs, departing for the hunt, made about the same time (when Frans Snijders was in Rubens workshop). The Judgement of Salomon was a popular theme for City Hall tribunal ("Vierschaar") halls, and in 1622 the Delft council commissioned Pieter van Bronkhorst's painting with the same subject which still hangs there today.