REMBRANDT VAN RIJN, 1606–1669
6350 Belshazzar's Feast

Neil MacLaren, revised and expanded by Christopher Brown, 1991

Extracted from:
Neil MacLaren; revised and expanded by Christopher Brown, The Dutch School 1600–1900 (London: National Gallery Publications Limited, 1991).

Plate 295

Signed and dated above the shoulder of the falling woman on the right; Rembrand/F 163 (?). The signature and date can be best seen in ultra‐violet light. There is a damage after the ‘d’. Much of the penultimate digit of the date is damaged so that only the top of the 3 remains; the last digit is lost.

Inscribed, top right‐hand corner, in Hebrew, to be read vertically from right to left: Mene mene tekel upharsin.¹

Oil on canvas, 167.6 × 209.2 cm (66 × 82⅜).

Cleaned in 1964. There is a tear in the top left‐hand corner. There is wearing to the right of the inscription and to the right of Belshazzar’s left hand where there is also a marked craquelure.

The canvas consists of two equal widths of the standard 1½ ell measurement, joined by a central vertical seam. A number of important observations about this canvas have been made by Ernst van de Wetering.² First, there is the same distinct vertical weave fault about 20 cm. in from each vertical edge, made visible by the X‐radiograph (Fig. 88). This means that the two pieces were cut from the length, placed one on top of the other in the same direction, seamed along one edge and then opened up flat. Secondly, the same weave fault, thread count and general weave characteristics are found in other paintings by Rembrandt — for example, Abraham’s Sacrifice in Munich.³ Without doubt the Munich canvas came from the same bolt as the London one and they were probably seamed and prepared at the same time. Thirdly, narrow wedge‐shaped pieces of canvas were at some time cut from all four sides, perhaps during an early lining. This was detected by a study of the cusping which becomes progressively shallower along each side, and by measuring the widths of each canvas piece, which differ at the top and bottom. The result is that the whole picture is tilted slightly anti‐clockwise. The seam slopes to the left, the table runs uphill and the wine spilt by the woman on the right falls towards the right instead of vertically.

The canvas is prepared with a double ground similar to that in Nos. 672 and 4930. The lower layer is of a fairly pure orange‐red earth with on top a light fawnish‐grey [page 1.363]consisting of granular lead white combined with some umber and black pigment.

PENTIMENTI: Belshazzar’s turban was at first higher at the back, before the crown was added. To Belshazzar’s right is the shadowy face of a man, which was subsequently painted out. Belshazzar’s right hand was apparently open, the fingers straighter and not clenched; and the dish beside it was taller. There is some highlighted drapery at his waist which has been subsequently glazed over. There are small changes in the lettering of the inscription, but these are in the size of the letters and not their forms. The shadowy musician at the back on the left cannot be seen at all in the X‐radiograph and must be painted exlusively in earth colours.⁴

Discussion

The subject is taken from Daniel 5: 1–5. Daniel’s interpretation of the inscription is given in verses 26–8.

Hausherr⁵ has shown that the same formula for the inscription was used by Mennaseh ben Israel in his De termino vitae of 1639 (Fig. 89). He argued that Rembrandt, who etched a portrait of ben Israel in 1636⁶ and moved to a house opposite his in 1639, obtained the formula directly from ben Israel. He has been unable to trace another example of the use of this formula, and that Rembrandt obtained it from ben Israel seems likely. Hausherr argued that the date of publication of De termino vitae supports a date for No. 6350 of c. 1639, a dating which was proposed by Sumowski.⁷ However, the date of publication cannot be used as a terminus post quem for the execution of No. 6350. Rembrandt could have obtained the formula from ben Israel before the publication of the book; indeed, the two pentimenti in the inscription may suggest that Rembrandt did not have the formula as published in front of him when he began work. It should also be noted that the lettering in the two inscriptions does not exactly correspond. Van Gelder⁸ preferred the traditional dating of the painting, that is, around the middle of the 1630s.⁹ (Gerson¹⁰ also favoured this dating.) Van Gelder pointed out that in No. 6350 motives of early paintings such as the Judas returning the Thirty Pieces of Silver¹¹ are repeated for the last time. However, very similar poses also recur in The Wedding Feast of Samson¹² of 1638 in Dresden. In violence of expression and gesture and in the dramatic effects of light, the painting recalls The Blinding of Samson¹³ of 1636 in Frankfurt and there are also analogies of pose in The Angel taking Leave of Tobias¹⁴ of 1637 in the Louvre. A date of c. 1636–8 would seem most likely for No. 6350.

There is a similarity in the pose of the woman on the right with the man centre left, seen from the back, in Rembrandt’s etching of Christ driving the Money Changers from the Temple¹⁵ of 1635. Hofstede de Groot has suggested that A Man in Oriental Costume¹⁶ of 1633 in Munich is a study for the figure of Belshazzar in No. 6350 but this is unlikely.

ENGRAVING: A derivation from the right half of the painting, without the falling woman, was engraved by Pollard.¹⁷ The mezzotint by Henry Hudson records a different composition.¹⁸

COPIES: A copy attributed to Samuel van Hoogstraten is in Sanssouci.¹⁹ Another copy is in the Rushbrook parish church, near Bury St Edmunds.²⁰ HdG ²¹ mentions a copy by Peter Tillemans which is recorded as being in the collection of Charles Jennens, London, in 1761.

PROVENANCE: First recorded at Knowsley Hall in 1736;²² it was purchased by Hamlet Winstanley for James Stanley, 19th Earl of Derby (d. 1 February 1735/6) for £125.²³ Bought by the National Gallery from the Earl of Derby with the assistance of the NACF , 1964.

EXHIBITIONS: BI 1822 , No. 21; BI 1852 , No. 24; Manchester 1857, No. 695; RA 1899, No. 58; RA 1952–3, No. 160; Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, ‘Rembrandt’, 1956 , No. 18; Manchester 1957, No. 131; London 1988–9, No. 7.

REFERENCES:

General: Bode and HdG , vol. 3, No. 168; HdG No. 52; Bauch No. 21; Bredius, Rembrandt, No. 497 Rembrandt Corpus, vol. 3, No. Ano.

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