Homer

What survives here is a piece of a larger painting. Rembrandt made it in 1663 for Antonio Ruffo, a Sicilian nobleman who kept ordering canvases from him even after the artist had gone bankrupt in Amsterdam and lost his house. The subject is the blind poet Homer, head tipped as he recites from memory. Once there was more, a scribe seated to write the words down as they came. Fire later destroyed that side of the canvas, and it was cut down to save the rest. Look at the lower right and you can still find two fingers and a pen, all that is left of the vanished scribe. Rembrandt built the whole figure out of thick, worked paint in deep browns and gold.