Solomon Worshipping an Idol

Hans Burgkmair's debt to the Italian Renaissance is evident in this border, filled with grotesques and frolicking nudes. Solomon's tastes were similarly exotic: his wives, many of them foreign, included 700 princesses and 300 concubines (I Kings 11: 1-13). This woodcut emphasizes the amorous old king's helplessness in the face of female blandishments: the false god he worships resembles the crafty pagan wife who convinces him to commit this sacrilege.