Belshazzar's Feast

Artist: Rembrandt

Completion Date: 1635

Style: Baroque

Genre: religious painting

Technique: oil

Material: canvas

Dimensions: 209.2 x 167.6 cm

Gallery: National Gallery

• Share:
• Share on Facebook
• Share on Tumblr
• Share on Twitter

Rembrandt based this painting off of the story of Belshazzar as well as the writing on the wall in Book of Daniel in the Old Testament. Although Amsterdam was part of the Holy Roman Empire at the time, it also had a large Jewish population, and so this is a story of which many of Rembrant’s contemporaries would have been familiar. The artist’s intention at the time was to create a portrait of a religious story to which the public, who were largely illiterate, could refer. Rembrandt produced many stories from the bible for the same purpose, including Return of the Prodigal Son and Christ with the Sick around Him.