Belshazzar's Feast

Rembrandt painted Belshazzar's Feast around 1636-38, one of his most dramatic and theatrically spectacular compositions — the moment from the Book of Daniel when a disembodied hand writes 'Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin' (numbered, weighed, divided) on the wall during Belshazzar's sacrilegious banquet using the sacred vessels looted from Jerusalem's Temple. The blazing Hebrew inscription that illuminates the scene was inscribed in consultation with Rembrandt's friend Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel, the Jewish scholar and printer whose Amsterdam publishing house was one of the most significant in Europe; the Hebrew letters are arranged vertically rather than horizontally, a detail that impressed contemporary scholars. Rembrandt's access to Amsterdam's learned Jewish community distinguished his biblical paintings from those of his contemporaries who worked from conventional Christian iconography without direct engagement with Hebrew sources. The National Gallery's holding of this monumental canvas makes it accessible alongside the Woman Taken in Adultery and other major Rembrandts in the London collection.

The explosive burst of light from the divine inscription illuminates the king's terrified face and the spilling wine, with Rembrandt's virtuoso rendering of gold-embroidered robes and jewels creating a scene of opulent, panicked splendor.