Давид, играющий на арфе перед Саулом

Rembrandt was about 24 when he painted this, still working in Leiden, the Dutch town where he was born, before the fame he would find in Amsterdam. The story comes from the Hebrew Bible. The young shepherd David is brought to King Saul to calm the black moods that torment the king, and he plays the harp while Saul listens. Even this early, Rembrandt was fascinated by a face caught in the middle of a shifting feeling, and he built the small panel around Saul's heavy, brooding stare set against the boy's quiet concentration. He would come back to these same two figures decades later in a much larger, more famous canvas, now in The Hague, where Saul lifts a curtain to wipe his eye.