The Queen of Sheba before Solomon

This picture once had another picture on its back. Around 1435 Konrad Witz painted both sides of a single oak board for a large folding altarpiece in Basel. This face, with the Queen of Sheba kneeling before King Solomon, belonged to the inside of a wing and was seen when the altar stood open. The outside showed Synagoga, a figure standing for the Old Covenant. At some point the board was split through its thickness, and the two paintings went their separate ways. The Synagogue is now in the Kunstmuseum Basel, and this side was bought for Berlin in 1913. What ties them together is the wood itself, since the joins between the planks fall in exactly the same places on both. The subject was chosen for a reason. Medieval readers saw the queen, who travelled from the east bringing gifts to a wise king, as a forerunner of the Magi bringing theirs to the infant Christ. Here her gift is a tall golden vessel, held out across the space between them.