42. Jan Harmenz Muller
(1571-1628)
Belshazzar's Feast

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Muller: Belshazzar's Feast

Belshazzar's Feast

Engraving, ca. 1600, 353 x 397 mm.,Bartsch 1, Hollstein 11 ii/iii. Fine impression before the address of Visscher on laid paper trimmed just to the edges of the work on three sides and with the full text at the bottom, backed with old blue laid paper; the very tip of the lower left corner of the sheet lost (blank paper). The biblical reference is to Daniel 5. Belshazzar, King of Babylon, held a great banquet, eating and drinking from the sacred gold and silver vessels that had been taken by his father Nebuchadnezzar from the Hebrew temple in Jerusalem. Suddenly, a hand appeared and began to write on the palace wall words that no one there could understand. Daniel was summoned to interpret, and he told the king that the words prophesied the end of the Babylonian kingdom. Belshazzar was murdered that night and his kingdom divided. The print, an extraordinary study of candle and torch illumination, with some faces and figures almost dissolved in light and others almost lost in darkness, is quite rare. Muller was among the most brilliant print makers of the Northern mannerist style.