He sits with his hands clasped, looking up.
Bible in art · Daniel
Daniel in the Lions' Den
Rubens · c. 1614/1616
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Rubens painted this large canvas in Antwerp about 1614–1616, with the lions at life size. In 1618 he offered it to the English ambassador Sir Dudley Carleton, describing it as Daniel among many lions “taken from life”; it later belonged to King Charles I.
Daniel sits on a rock, his hands clasped, looking up to the opening of the den. The lions around him roar, stare or doze, but none touches him.
From the text
- Daniel thrown into the den of lions (Daniel 6:16)
- A stone placed over the mouth of the den (Daniel 6:17)
- The lions not hurting him (Daniel 6:22)
The artist’s own
- Daniel as a muscular young man, nearly unclothed, with a red cloak
- Lions and lionesses painted from studies of live animals
- Bones and a skull on the floor of the den
Details
Daniel
The opening
A gap in the rock shows a strip of blue sky.
A roaring lion
Its head thrown back, mouth wide open.
At rest
A lion lies with its eyes half closed.
On the floor
Bones and a skull among the stones.
Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish, 1577–1640. National Gallery of Art, Washington (Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1965.13.1) · Oil on canvas · NGA Open Access: "Images of these works are available free of charge for any use, commercial or non-commercial, under Creative Commons Zero (CC0)." (NGA open data: published_images.csv openaccess = 1)