David with His Sword

In the classic tale of faith and daring overcoming brute strength (1 Samuel 17), the shepherd boy David slew the armored Philistine giant Goliath with a stave, a slingshot and a few pebbles; after stunning him with a stone, David took up the giant’s own sword and severed his head. Salomon de Bray could evoke the whole narrative with a single figure — an ordinary, rather blank-faced Dutch youth holding an oversize sword, embodying youth and naïveté rather than an idealized heroic type. The painting is held in the J. Paul Getty Museum.