The Judgment of Solomon

Two women stand before King Solomon, each claiming the same baby. One infant died in the night, and the living one is held up by a soldier ready to cut him in two on the king's order. The true mother is the one who begs him to stop and give the child to her rival. In the Book of Kings, Solomon then says to give the living child to her, for she is his mother, and that is the moment Valentin paints, with the dead baby lying on the floor.

To keep so many figures readable, he borrowed the arrangement of the same scene in the Vatican Loggias, painted by Raphael and his workshop. For a long time the canvas hung as the pair of his Daniel judging the elders who accused Susanna, also in the Louvre and the same size, two just verdicts from the Bible side by side. Some scholars think they really were made as companions for one collector, a few years apart. Valentin also painted a second version of almost the same size, now in Rome at the Palazzo Barberini.