Balaam e l'asina

Rembrandt signed and dated this in 1626, when he was just twenty and still working in his hometown of Leiden, years before the fame and the big Amsterdam commissions. The story is an old one from the Book of Numbers. The prophet Balaam is riding out to curse the Hebrews when his donkey suddenly balks, seeing an angel with a drawn sword that Balaam himself cannot yet see. He raises his stick to beat the animal, furious and blind to the miracle right in front of him. Rembrandt learned this rare subject from his teacher Pieter Lastman, whose own version he clearly studied. What already stands out is the paint itself. In the prophet's robes and the bag stuffed with papers, the young painter lays it on thick and granular, building texture you can almost feel, a habit he would carry for the rest of his life.