Sacrificio de Abraham

There are two of these. Rembrandt painted the scene of Abraham stopped from killing his son once, in 1635, and that canvas is now in St Petersburg. This second version, from 1636, carries a Dutch inscription along the bottom saying it was 'altered and painted over' that year. Who actually held the brush is still argued. Many scholars give it to Govert Flinck, who had just finished training under Rembrandt and would have worked from the master's original; others read the inscription to mean Rembrandt reworked the composition himself. The painter changed one telling thing. In the earlier version the angel swoops in from the side, meeting Abraham's eye. Here it arrives from behind him, seizing his arm before he can see who it is, so the reprieve lands as a shock rather than an exchange. The ram that will take Isaac's place waits at the edge of the scene.