Daniel and Cyrus Before the Idol Bel

Inside a shadowy temple, the prophet Daniel confronts the Persian king Cyrus over the fraud of the idol Bel: the priests have been consuming the nightly offerings in secret, and their worried faces betray the moment of exposure. Rembrandt’s lamplight catches the king’s extravagant finery and the gold vessels set on the velvet-covered table, while the colossal bronze idol looms half-seen on the right; he contrasts Cyrus’s imposing grandeur with the small, modest figure of Daniel, whose humble posture underlines the drama of the apocryphal tale from the Book of Daniel. Painted in 1633 on a small oak panel, the work belongs to the Leiden years in which the young Rembrandt was establishing himself as the most daring history painter of his generation. The painting is held in the J. Paul Getty Museum.