Jonah Cast Out by the Whale onto the Shore of Nineveh

Maarten van Heemskerck · 1566
The Cleveland Museum of Art

Maarten van Heemskerck of Haarlem drew this scene in pen and brown ink and signed and dated it in 1566. It belongs to a series on the story of Jonah made as designs for engravings: its lines were pressed through to a copper plate. The Cleveland Museum of Art acquired it in 2024.

The great fish, all teeth and fins, lies in the surf with its mouth wide open, and Jonah flies out of it through the air, arms flung up. A city with towers lines the far shore, ships sail at the left, and an old man looks down from the clouds.

From the text

The great fish (Jonah 1:17)

The fish casting Jonah out onto dry land (Jonah 2:10)

Ships at sea, like the one he fled on (Jonah 1:3)

A great city beyond the shore — Nineveh, as the drawing’s title says (Jonah 3:3)

The artist’s own

The fish as a sea monster with pointed teeth, fins and a coiled tail

God shown as an old bearded man in the clouds, as artists often did

A coastal city with towers like those of the 16th century

Details

Jonah

Flung through the air, arms raised.

The fish

Huge jaws full of teeth and a staring eye.

The tail

A coiled, finned tail rises from the waves.

In the clouds

An old bearded man looks down — artists often showed God like this.

The city

Towers and walls on the far shore.

Ships

Sailing ships out at sea.

Maarten van Heemskerck, Dutch, 1498–1574. The Cleveland Museum of Art (Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund, 2024.28) · Pen and brown ink over indications in black chalk, within brown ink framing lines; indented for transfer · Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access: Collection API record "share_license_status": "CC0" (Creative Commons Zero, https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).