Le Jugement de Cambyse

Gerard David painted these two panels in 1498 for the town hall of Bruges, and they were meant to hang where the city's own judges sat. The story is a grim one from ancient Persia. A judge named Sisamnes took a bribe and gave a false verdict, and King Cambyses had him arrested and then flayed alive. On the right panel David shows the flaying in cool, matter-of-fact detail, and above it the judge's son takes the bench, now seated on a chair covered with his father's own skin. David dressed everyone in the fashions of his own Bruges and set it among the city's brick buildings, so the aldermen looking at it would understand the warning was for them. The panels are still in Bruges, in the Groeningemuseum.