Painted Table with Scenes from the Story of David

Few German painted tables of the 16th century survive, and this one is in unusually good condition. The top is about 1.3 metres across, and it was made to be walked around. Beham divided it into four triangles, each turned towards a different edge, so that every scene reads the right way up from one side of the table. Together they tell the story of King David from the Books of Samuel. David returns in triumph after the victory over the Philistines. From his palace he catches sight of Bathsheba bathing. His army besieges the city of Rabbah, the siege in which he had her husband Uriah sent to his death. And the prophet Nathan confronts him with what he has done. Latin inscriptions cite the passages in Samuel.

A long dedication names the patron, Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg, archbishop of Mainz, the churchman whose indulgence campaign had provoked Martin Luther's protest in 1517. Beham added his monogram and the date 1534, and the table was made for the cardinal's residence in Halle, the Moritzburg.

It seems to have reached France in the 1550s, possibly with French troops, and passed into the collection of the Guise family. Around 1653 a duke of Guise gave it to Cardinal Mazarin, and in 1665 it was acquired for Louis the Fourteenth.