Belshazzar's Feast

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