Der Traum Josephs

By 1645 Rembrandt had left behind the huge group portraits that made his name in Amsterdam, and here he works at almost the opposite scale, on a slab of mahogany barely the size of a sheet of paper. The subject is Joseph asleep in the stable, receiving the second of his warnings, an angel leaning close to tell him that Herod means to kill the newborn children and that the family must slip away to Egypt that night. Rembrandt keeps almost everything in shadow. The light gathers on Joseph's tired face and on the pale wing of the angel bending over him, so the whole drama happens in the space between a sleeping man and a whisper he cannot yet hear.