Tag: The old testament

This plate shows all elements of the Daniel’s vision. The four winds have swept the seas and the four beasts come out: a lion with wings of eagles, a four-headed leopard also with wings, a bear with three ribs in his mouth and an undefinable beast with mighty tusks and ten horns. They are supposed to be the symbols of the ‘empires’. In the sky we see the ‘Almighty’ sitting on his throne. His coat is snow white and his hair is like wool. He is surrounded by his followers.

Again the stone plays a vital role when David uses it to beat Goliath. Rembrandt is suggesting the speed of the thrown stone by adding ‘cartoon-type’ dots in the circle of the swing. Among the men with the spears in the background is one that already raises his hand, as an early sign of victory. Goliath seems to be hit already, his body dark and heavy. The viewpoint is very low, at the same height as the many spectators in the background.

In his dream the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar sees a statue with a golden head, a silver breast, a brass belly and thigh, legs of iron and feet of clay. Then, a stone that was miraculously cut out, destroyed the feet making the statue to fall down. In the 1st state Rembrandt showed not just the feet but the full legs as broken, which he corrected in the 3rd state. In the final states the names of the six ‘empires’ that were dominating the world in Biblical times, are written on the various body-parts: Babel, Medi, Persi, Graeci, Mohametani and Romani.

Initially Rembrandt pictured the sleeping king at the foot of the ladder. He was probably made aware (by Menasseh himself?) that the middle of the ladder symbolizes Jerusalem as the centre of the earth and that Jacob should be positioned there. To solve this, the artist simply added a lower part to the ladder, which makes Jacob look like a floating person. Jacob was resting his head on the miraculous stone.

These four etchings were made as illustrations for a book published in Amsterdam in 1655, Piedra Glorioso o the la estatua the Nebuchadnezzar, by Menasseh ben Israel. The author was well acquainted with Rembrandt, who made an etching of his portrait almost twenty years earlier (B 269). The plate was cut at a later stage. Of all four separate plates various states exist, some already applied before the plate was cut.