The Judgement of Solomon

In July 1631 a Sicilian nobleman and art lover, Fabrizio Valguarnera, was on trial in Rome, accused of paying for valuable pictures with stolen jewels. Among his purchases was a Judgement of Solomon by Valentin, bought late that spring from a dealer, and Valguarnera testified that he had paid the painter six scudi to retouch it. Valentin painted the subject twice, and the other version is in the Louvre. Which of the two passed through Valguarnera's hands is still debated, and Keith Christiansen, a curator at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, has argued that it was this one.

Its authorship was debated as well. Parts of it are less finished than the Paris picture, the true mother's face and hands among them, and old repainting led the critic Roberto Longhi to take it for an early copy. Since 1989 scholars have agreed that it is Valentin's own, and both versions are dated to the late 1620s. Here the sentence has already been spoken. The executioner holds the child by the arm almost thoughtfully, the false mother hands him over on the left, and on the right the real mother bends in a quiet plea, her body turned toward us.