Rijksmuseum

Four Illustrations to a Spanish Book

Date

1655

Medium

Japanese paper

Institution

Rijksmuseum

Menasseh ben Israel, an acquaintance of Rembrandt, wrote the little book Piedra Gloriosa in 1655. He argued that the stone, the principal motif in each of these four stories from the Old Testament, symbolized the Messiah. He considered the ‘glorious stone’ to be proof of the second coming of Christ. Rembrandt made four book illustrations for this text. Copies of this book with the etchings still intact are very rare.

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