Judas Repentant, Returning the Pieces of Silver

Rembrandt was about 23 and still working in Leiden when he finished this in 1629. It shows the moment after the betrayal, Judas flung down on his knees before the priests, trying to hand back the thirty pieces of silver, his hands wrung together and his face broken open. Word of the picture reached Constantijn Huygens, secretary to the Dutch prince and one of the sharpest eyes of the day. He wrote that in this one figure of the ruined, hopeless Judas the young miller's son had outdone not just his fellow Dutchmen but the great artists of antiquity. It was among the first times the wider world took real notice of Rembrandt. He never painted this scene again.