Public Domain Image: The abduction of Europa, known by alternate title: De roof van Europa (Ovidius, Metamorphosen II, 833-875), oil on oak panel painting (1632) by the Dutch painter and etcher Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), dimensions 62.2 cm x 77 cm (24.49 in x 30.31 in) located at The J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles), one of the most visited museums in the United States.
Public Domain Image: Simson, an der Hochzeitstafel das Rätsel aufgebend (a 1638 painting depicting Samson's marriage feast in which he delivers the puzzle), oil on canvas painting by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669), dimensions 126.5 cm x 175.5 cm, located at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, Germany.
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When Samson (also spelled as Shimshon, Simson, Shamshoun or Sampson) grows up to adulthood, he leaves his hills people to see the cities of the Philistines, where he falls in love with a Philistine woman and he decides to marry her. On the way to her house to ask for the woman's hand in marriage, Samson is attacked by a lion but he easily grabs it and rips it apart as he is blessed with divine powers, and reaches the Philistine's house and wins her hand in marriage. On his way to the wedding, Samson notices that bees have nested in the carcass of the lion and have made honey. He drinks some honey and gives some to his parents. At the wedding feast, Samson offers the puzzle, "Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet", to his thirty Philistine groomsmen, and promises them thirty pieces of fine linen and garments, if they can solve it. The puzzle relates to his eating honey, on his second encounter with the lion (carcass). Failed and infuriated, the 30 Philistines tell Samson's wife to discover the answer and tell them, and threatens to burn her and her father's household if she does not do so. On the tearful imploring of his bride, Samson tells her the solution, which she reveals to the thirty groomsmen.
The Storm on the Sea of Galilee (1633), oil on canvas painting by Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn, size 160 cm x 128 cm (62.99” x 50.39”), location: unknown since March 1990, when the painting was stolen by two unknown men from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, USA.
The Storm on the Sea of Galilee (1633), the only seascape painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Rembrandt van Rijn was in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum of Boston, Massachusetts, United States, before being stolen on March 18, 1990. The painting’s theme is based on the miracle of Jesus calming the waves on the Sea of Galilee (Ch 4, Gospel of Mark). The painting shows fourteen people in the boat, Jesus and his twelve disciples and the fourteenth person is believed to be Rembrandt himself, as he used to paint himself as one of the persons in pictures showing groups of people, especially in biblical themes.
The theft of the painting was reported to have happened in the morning of March 18, 1990, when two unidentified thieves broke into the museum and stole The Storm on the Sea of Galilee and 12 other works of art whose value has been estimated as high as $300 million. This hitherto unresolved theft case is considered the biggest art theft in the history of USA.
There is a page in the site of FBI named ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER MUSEUM THEFT where the case is reported and FBI asks the visitors to tip the FBI if they have any information on the theft of some paintings, including this Rembrandt and The Concert (Vermeer), A Lady and Gentleman in Black (Rembrandt), Self-Portrait (Rembrandt), Landscape with Obelisk (Govaert Flinck) and Manet (Chez Tortoni).
‘The Toilet of Bathsheba’, or ‘Batseba aan haar toilet (2 Samuel 11:2)’, a 1643 oil on oak painting by Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) or by the workshop of Rembrandt, dimensions 57.2 cm x 76.2 cm (22.52” x 30.00”) currently located in Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. On 9 June 1913 the painting was bought by Paris art dealer Duveen at the sale of the collection of Jhr. Hendricus Adolphus Steengracht, The Hague, at the auction house Georges Petit, Paris. From Duveen, the same year, it was bought by Benjamin Altman of New York and bequeathed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York by Altman.
Image: Christ Driving the Moneychangers from the Temple (1626), oil painting on oak panel by Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), dimensions 43.1 cm x 32 cm, currently located at Pushkin Museum, Moscow.
The incident of ‘Cleansing of the Temple’ occurs in all four Gospels in the New Testament. It occurs near the end of the Synoptic Gospels (Mark 11:15-19, 11:27-33; Matthew 21:12-17, 21:23-27; Luke 19:45-48, 20:1-8; and John 2:13-16). Jesus visited the Temple in Jerusalem, Herod's Temple, where the courtyard was filled with livestock and the tables of the moneychangers, who changed the Greek and Roman money for Jewish and Tyrian money, which were the only coinage used in Temple ceremonies. Creating a whip from some cords, ‘he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers' money and overturned the tables. But he said to those who sold doves, ‘Get these out of here! Do not make My Father's house a house of merchandise!’ (John 2:13-16).
“And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves” - Matthew 21:12-13
