Les Adieux de David et Jonathan

Rembrandt painted this in 1642, the same year his wife Saskia died at 29, a few months after the birth of their son Titus. The subject comes from the Book of Samuel: the young David and his friend Jonathan parting, knowing they may never meet again. Jonathan holds David against his chest while David weeps into his shoulder, his face hidden from us. Many people who have stood before it feel that the grief in the picture is Rembrandt's own, painted in the year he lost the person closest to him. The gold-threaded clothes and the quiver of arrows are worked in his richest manner, but the whole thing turns on that one buried, sobbing face.