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The Art of Law pp 125–147Cite as

The Judgment of Cambyses: A Rich Iconographical Topic with Multiple Sources and a Long Tradition

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Part of the book series: Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice ((IUSGENT,volume 66))

Abstract

The antique story of the flaying of a corrupt judge, ordered by the Persian King Cambyses, generated an abundance of medieval literature. In the visual arts, the fifteenth century painting Judgment of Cambyses (1498; Groeningemuseum, Bruges) by Gerard David was a milestone in how the story was depicted. David represented it in four scenes (a diptych with two scenes on each panel): the bribery, the arrest of the judge, the flaying, and the installation of the son on his father’s skin spread over the seat. The better-known Christian iconographical tradition of the flaying of Saint Bartholomew was likely a direct inspiration for David, as well as for some miniaturists. It is my hypothesis that the refined but cruel realism of the painting is the result of a diligent observation of animal flaying—and not of a judicial practice of human flaying. In addition to this, increasingly popular representations of anatomical lessons were also a useful source of inspiration for the elaboration of the diptych. Furthermore, many scholars have interpreted the painting as an early group portrait in disguise of Bruges’ aldermen. After David, the depiction of the bribery and the arrest scenes in the Cambyses tale disappeared. Artists started concentrating on the moment of the installation of the young judge on the skin of his father, often with the flaying scene on the background. The Cambyses story, ultimately represented through an emblematic stripped-off skin, was, just as many other exemplary representations of justice, to be replaced by a symbolic iconographic representation of Lady Justice. If flaying was represented at all, it was reserved for other subjects, such as the Marsyas legend, the martyrdom of St Bartholomew and the artistic expression of anatomical structures of the human body.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Law Faculty, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Raf Verstegen

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  1. Raf Verstegen
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Correspondence to Raf Verstegen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Art, Ghent Legal History Institute, FWO (Research Foundation Flanders), Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Stefan Huygebaert

  2. Ghent Legal History Institute, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Georges Martyn

  3. Flemish research centre for the arts of the Burgundian Netherlands, Musea Brugge, Bruges, Belgium

    Vanessa Paumen

  4. Centre de recherches en histoire du droit et des institutions, Université Saint-Louis, Brussels, Belgium

    Eric Bousmar

  5. Centre d’histoire du droit et de la justice, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Xavier Rousseaux

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Verstegen, R. (2018). The Judgment of Cambyses: A Rich Iconographical Topic with Multiple Sources and a Long Tradition. In: Huygebaert, S., Martyn, G., Paumen, V., Bousmar, E., Rousseaux, X. (eds) The Art of Law. Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, vol 66. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90787-1_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90787-1_7

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