Моисей разбивает скрижали закона

Rembrandt painted this in 1659, in the last decade of his life, after bankruptcy had forced him to sell his house and his collection. Moses lifts the two stone tablets high above his head, and if you look closely at them the Hebrew letters are legible and correct, carefully lettered by a painter in Protestant Amsterdam who lived beside the city's Jewish quarter and clearly knew people who could check his work. Scholars still argue about the moment. His face reads more like grief than fury, so some think this is not the smashing at all but the second descent, when Moses carried a fresh set down the mountain. The paint was once richer than it looks now. His cloak would have glowed a deep purple that time has quietened.