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Abner's Messenger before David (?); The Queen of Sheba Bringing Gifts to Solomon; (The Annunciation, on the reverse) by Master of the Legend of Saint Barbara

Master of the Legend of Saint Barbara · 1480-01-01

This is 'The Queen of Sheba Bringing Gifts to Solomon,' painted around 1490 by an artist known only as the Master of the Legend of Saint Barbara. It hangs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The other side of the panel shows the Annunciation, but the front is where the real time-travel happens.

Look closely at the background. The King sits not in a Middle Eastern palace, but in front of an ornate Gothic screen carved with tracery, the kind you would find in a 15th-century Northern European church. And through the archway behind him, a Flemish town with red walls and steep roofs replaces ancient Jerusalem. The painter probably never saw the Holy Land, so he dressed the story in the only world he knew.

The Queen's embroidered cape is the technical showpiece. The repeating botanical pattern on the brocade is rendered with a fine-tipped brush, layer after translucent layer of oil paint, a method called glazing. This textile obsession would define Flemish painting for the next century. Even the donors, four dark-robed men holding processional crosses in the corners, are likely the clerics who commissioned this altarpiece for their own church.

Every surface in this painting is a witness to 1490, not 950 BC. The story is ancient, but the world it shows is unmistakably the artist's own.

Details

But the architecture tells a different story.
But the architecture tells a different story.
Look past the throne, through the arch.
Look past the throne, through the arch.
Even the Queen's brocade is pure 1490s court fashion.
Even the Queen's brocade is pure 1490s court fashion.
Devotional portraits of the commissioning patrons; their crosses suggest clerical or confraternity status , the private faces behind a public altarpiece commission.
Devotional portraits of the commissioning patrons; their crosses suggest clerical or confraternity status , the private faces behind a public altarpiece commission.
Central heroine of the right scene; the heavily patterned outer garment is the painter's showpiece , a slow camera landing here would reveal Flemish textile-rendering at its finest.
Central heroine of the right scene; the heavily patterned outer garment is the painter's showpiece , a slow camera landing here would reveal Flemish textile-rendering at its finest.
Transcript

It looks like a biblical scene from ancient Israel. But the architecture tells a different story. That is not Solomon's Temple. It is a Gothic church screen from the 1400s. Look past the throne, through the arch. A red-walled Flemish town stands where Jerusalem should be. Even the Queen's brocade is pure 1490s court fashion.