Workshop of Frans Floris

Giuseppe Vallardi (1784–1861), Milan (L.1223);

Private collection, France

In the decade following Frans Floris’s return from Italy to Antwerp around 1546, the artist produced an influential series of works depicting episodes from the History of Solomon. This includes a cycle of paintings for a town hall or courtroom, just two of which survive today: The Judgment of Solomon (c. 1547), now in the KMSKA, Antwerp, and Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, at the Groninger Museum, Groningen. Additionally, there is a series of four Solomonic engravings – two by Dirck Volckertsz Coornhert and two by Philips Galle. These date to the mid-1550s. A final Solomonic painting attributed to Floris is in the Barrington Brook collection.

The present drawing, which does not correspond with any of Floris's known compositions with this subject, does seem close to his style, but by another hand. Floris ran a large workshop, and many of his assistant were artists of great ability.