Le Jugement de Salomon

Nicolas Poussin painted this in Rome in 1649 for Jean Pointel, a banker from Lyon who was among his closest friends and collectors, and when he sent it north to Paris he called it his best work. The subject is a ruler's wisdom put to the test. Two women claim one living child, Solomon orders the baby cut in two, and the true mother cries out to save it by giving it up. Poussin builds the scene with almost architectural balance, the king raised at the center, the two women set against each other, grief on one side and spite on the other. Louis XIV bought the painting in 1685, and it passed through the royal collection long before the Louvre opened as a public museum in 1793.