Orestes and Pylades Disputing at the Altar

When Lastman painted this in 1614, the play behind it could not be read in Dutch. Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris only appeared in Dutch in 1666, translated by the poet Vondel, so the painter probably worked from the ancient text with help from a learned adviser. He chose the moment before the recognition. Two captured Greeks, Orestes and Pylades, each insist on dying so the other can go home, while the priestess Iphigenia comes forward with a letter, unaware that one of them is her brother. Lastman took extra local colour from other ancient writers. The executioner waits with a club, and severed heads are stuck on poles above the crowd. The picture fetched 900 guilders at an Amsterdam sale in 1676, and only 200 in 1702, when the collection of Jan Six, the burgomaster Rembrandt had painted, went under the hammer.