Belshazzar's Feast (Rembrandt Full)
c. 1636–1638 · Oil on canvas · National Gallery, London
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This print
About this work
- Artist
- Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669)
- Year
- c. 1636–1638
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Original size
- 167.6 × 209.2 cm
- Collection
- National Gallery, London
- Movement
- Dutch Golden Age
A hand emerges from a cloud and writes on the wall while the king of Babylon twists round in alarm, wine spilling from the golden vessels his father looted from the Temple in Jerusalem. The story is from the Book of Daniel, and the words, Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin, announce that Belshazzar has been weighed and found wanting. Rembrandt painted it around 1636 to 1638, when he was about thirty and establishing himself in Amsterdam as a painter of large Baroque histories. He took the form of the Hebrew letters from a book by his neighbour, the scholar and printer Menasseh ben Israel, but arranged them in columns rather than rows, which may be why the Babylonian wise men could not read them. The canvas was at Knowsley Hall, seat of the Earls of Derby, from 1736 until the National Gallery in London bought it in 1964, where it has become one of its most reproduced pictures.
This full-bleed edition prints the work edge to edge from a high-resolution scan of the original, very slightly cropped (a few percent at most) to fit the sheet. The gallery edition shows the whole work, uncropped. The original is in the public domain.
Where it works
A hand writing on the wall, spilled wine and golden vessels, a dramatic Baroque picture for a dining room or den at 32×24 in black. A dark or deep red wall; it reads across a room under low light and should hang alone.
Style, size & framing detail
- Style
- Dutch Golden Age painting
- Era
- 17th century (c. 1636–1638)
- Orientation
- Landscape
- Mood
- grand
- Rooms
- dining room, living room
- Good gift for
- housewarming, art lovers
Size. We'd hang this one at 32×24. Prints at 16×12, 24×18, 32×24 in — 16×12 for a shelf, desk or a gallery-wall grid; 24×18 above a console or sideboard; 32×24 as the statement piece above a sofa or headboard.
Framing. Printed edge to edge: a slim black or natural wood frame right to the image, or let the canvas wrap do the framing. Also available gallery-wrapped on canvas, ready to hang with no frame.
Pairing. Pairs as a set of three with other famous painting prints (10% off three or more).
Details & materials
Shipping & returns
Is this the whole painting, or a crop?
Is Belshazzar's Feast in the public domain?
What is it printed on?
When was Belshazzar's Feast painted, and in what medium?
What size works above a sofa or bed?
About this design
The Madten promise
An exhibition poster
The same artwork as a gallery exhibition poster — title, artist & date typeset beneath the image on a soft ground.
A fine-art print
The same artwork as a clean fine-art print — the image shown large with a minimal caption.
