Minerva

Rembrandt painted this small oak panel around 1631, the year he left his home town of Leiden, aged about 25, and moved to Amsterdam to make his name. He shows Minerva, the Roman goddess of both war and wisdom, and he makes his choice between her two sides very plain. Her sword, golden helmet and Medusa shield hang on the wall behind her, put aside, while she sits among books, a globe and a lute, crowned with olive, the goddess of learning and protector of the arts rather than the warrior. The strong light falling from the left catches her face and the gold of her cloak and lets the corners of the room drop into shadow, the kind of lighting Rembrandt was already making his own in these Leiden years.