La concordia dello Stato

Rembrandt made this in 1642, the same year he finished the enormous Night Watch, and it could hardly look more different. It is a grisaille, worked only in browns and greys, swift and sketch-like, small enough to hold in the hand, yet full of his dramatic light. The subject is the Dutch republic itself, still deep in its long war of independence from Spain. Among the crowd and horses you can pick out the coats of arms of Amsterdam, Leiden and Haarlem, cities being urged to hold together. What the picture was actually for, nobody is sure, whether a study toward a lost larger work or something more private, and scholars still disagree about it.