Stephen, on his knees, turns his face upward.
Bible in art · Acts
The Stoning of Saint Stephen
Rembrandt · 1635
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Rembrandt made this small etching in Amsterdam in 1635 and signed it in the plate at the lower left. He had already painted the same subject about ten years earlier, as one of his first large pictures.
Stephen has sunk to his knees and looks up. A soldier grips his robe, a man behind lifts a large stone above his head, and another bends to pick one up. To the right, onlookers in turbans watch beneath a towering city wall.
From the text
- They “rushed together at him” and dragged him out of the city (Acts 7:57–58)
- Stephen “looked intently into heaven” (Acts 7:55)
- “Falling on his knees, he cried out in a loud voice” (Acts 7:60)
The artist’s own
- Men in turbans, a tall fur hat and a steel helmet — Rembrandt’s mix of Eastern and Dutch costume
- A ruined, towering wall in the background
- A lost slipper lying on the ground
Details
Looking up
The raised stone
A man lifts a heavy stone high over his head.
The soldier
A man in a helmet seizes Stephen by his robe.
Picking up a stone
A man bends down to take a stone from the ground.
A slipper
A shoe lost in the struggle lies on the ground.
Onlookers
Men in turbans watch from the right.
Rembrandt van Rijn, Dutch, 1606–1669. National Gallery of Art, Washington (Rosenwald Collection, 1943.3.7249) · Etching · 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)