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©
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Heinrich Schönfeld

Solomon and the Queen of Sheba

ca. 1639 - 1648
Oil on canvas.
82 x 112 cm
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Inv. no.
367
(
1977.58
)
Not on display
  • Level 2 Permanent Collection
  • Level 1 Permanent Collection
  • Level 0 Carmen Thyssen Collection and Temporary exhibition rooms
  • Level -1 Temporary exhibition rooms, Conference room and EducaThyssen workshop
Level 2
Permanent Collection
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 13 15 16 17 18 22 19 20 21 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Recommended start of the visitClassical rooms
1 14th Century. Early Italian Painting 2 15th Century. German and Spanish Painting 3 15th Century. Early Netherlandish Painting 4 15th Century. Italian Painting 5 15th and 16th Centuries. Renaissance Portraiture 6 16th Century. Villahermosa Gallery 7 16th Century. Italian Painting 8 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 9 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 10 16th Century. Netherlandish Painting 11 Tiziano, Tintoretto, Bassano and  El Greco 12 17th Century. Caravaggio and Baroque Painting 13 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 14 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 15 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 16 18th Century. Italian Painting 17 18th Century. Italian Painting 18 18th Century. Italian Painting 19 Classical rooms 20 Classical rooms 21 Classical rooms 22 18th Century. Italian Painting 23 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 24 18th Century. French and English Painting 25 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Scenes of Daily Life and Interiors 26 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 27 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Portrait 28 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 29 19th Century. European Painting. Goya and Romanticism  
Level 1
Permanent Collection
30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 Postpop rooms Rodin room
30 18th and 19th Centuries. Transatlantic Relations 31 19th Century. American Landscape and Environmental Awareness 32 19th Century. American Landscape and Urban Life 33 Recovering the ligth. Restoration of Waterloo Bridge, by André Derain 34 20th Century. Expressionist Landscapes 35 20th Century. Expressionist Portraits 36 20th Century. The Language of the Body 37 20th Century. Urban unrest 38 20th Century. Flowers 39 20th Century. Pioneers of abstraction 40 20th Century. Popular flavor 41 20th Century. The Cubist Tradition I 42 20th Century. The Cubist Tradition II 43 20th Century. Abstract Utopias 44 20th Century. Dada and Surrealism 45 20th Century. Interwar Realisms 46 20th Century. American Abstraction I 48 20th Century. Post-ward American Art 49 20th Century. Post-ward European Figurative Art 50 20th Century. Informalisms 51 20th Century. Homo Ludens 52 20th Century. Pop Art 53 Postpop rooms: Ayako Rokakku 54 Postpop rooms: Ayako Rokakku 55 Postpop rooms: Ayako Rokakku 56 Postpop rooms: Ayako Rokakku Rodin Exhibition room
Level 0
Carmen Thyssen Collection and Temporary exhibition rooms
A B C D E F G H I J Hall Temporary exhibition rooms Access to Permanent Collection Entrance Access to Carmen Thyssen Collection Paseo del Prado Garden
A 17th and 18th Centuries. Old Masters B 19th Century. North American Landscape C 19th Century. French Naturalist Landscape D 19th Century. Impressionism E 19th Century. Monet and North American Impressionism F 19th Century. Gauguin and Postimpressionism G 19th and 20th Centuries. Neo Impressionism and its Wake H 20th Century. Early Avant-gardes I 20th Century. Between the Wars Painting. Cubism, Abstraction and Surrealism J 20th Century. North American Painting and Others
Level -1
Temporary exhibition rooms, Conference room and EducaThyssen workshop
Temporary exhibition rooms Conference room EducaThyssen Workshop
Schönfeld was a German artist who spent a number of years in Italy where he is documented in Rome in 1633. The first known works by the artist are drawings and reflect his interest in classical ruins. This interest would be maintained throughout his career and was expressed in a classical style influenced by his time spent in Italy. Around 1638 the artist moved to Naples where he spent a number of years and where his palette lightened and his compositions became more animated, also reflecting the influence of artists such as Andrea Vaccaro. Schönfeld returned to Germany in 1651 and moved to Augsburg the following year. He generally set his compositions in broad, theatrical, outdoor settings articulated around fragments of sculpture and architecture of classical inspiration. The figures are arranged in groups and gesture plays an important part in conveying the narrative.

On this occasion Schönfeld depicts an Old Testament scene. Using a typically broad setting he locates the principal figures on the left, almost lost among the multitude of figures and animals that fill the area around Solomon’s tent. According to the biblical account, the Queen of Sheba arrived in Jerusalem with a large retinue and with camels laden with gifts for the king, whose knowledge she wished to put to the test. Schönfeld depicts the meeting between the two monarchs: Solomon wears a crown and a long cloak and holds a sceptre, while the Queen, in the centre of the canvas, is depicted kneeling and making a gesture of reverence towards her host. The setting for their meeting is framed on the left with rocks and a line of tents arranged in a diagonal that extends into the pictorial depth, balanced on the right by classical ruins. These elements create a large triangular space in the centre that is filled with the bustle of the camp and with the principal narrative event. Schönfeld locates a group of women and children on the right who are oblivious to the main scene, engaged in their labours among dead fowl, pitchers and jars, while the lower right corner is filled with a still life of fruit and vegetables on the ground.

Roberto Contini dated this canvas to Schönfeld’s Neapolitan period, when his style was enriched by the influence of artists such as Aniello Falcone and Micco Spadaro. Contini noted that the still life in the corner is particularly suggestive of Neapolitan painting of this period, as are other specific details such as the similarity between the figures of the Queen and one of the pages holding up Solomon’s cloak in the present work and various figures in The Beheading of Saint Gennaro by Carlo Coppola.

The present canvas, which is signed, has been compared to another by Schönfeld on the same subject dating from later in his career (Liechtenstein collection, Vaduz).

Mar Borobia
17th Centurys. XVII - Pintura alemanaPaintingOilcanvas
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Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Salomón y la reina de Saba, c. 1639-1648
Solomon and the Queen of Sheba
Heinrich Schönfeld

©

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

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Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Salomón y la reina de Saba, c. 1639-1648
Solomon and the Queen of Sheba
Heinrich Schönfeld

©

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

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