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  Photographic copy of engraving of 'Daniel in the Lions' Den' by Sir Peter Paul Rubens, copied from 1882 Hamilton Palace souvenir sale catalogue  
                 
  'Daniel in the Lions' Den' by Sir Peter Paul Rubens - click for further information
© National Museums of Scotland 		 

Original painting formerly in Hamilton Palace, South Lanarkshire, now in The National Gallery of Art, Washington, USA

The Dukes of Hamilton chose to display their most dramatic and famous painting in the Long Gallery.

Daniel in the Lions' Den is one of the most important pictures undertaken by the great Flemish artist Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) in the decade after his return from working and studying in Italy in 1608. It illustrates the Old Testament story of Daniel, who has been thrown into the lions' den on the orders of King Darius and is saved from death by his faith in God.

 
                 
 

The exact date of the painting is not known, but it must have been well underway, if not complete, in 1615, because the central lion and the lioness on the right appear in Jan Brueghel's Landscape with animals, dated 1615 (now at Apsley House, London). A copy of the painting is included in Brueghel's Allegory of Sight, dated 1617 (Prado, Madrid). Daniel in the Lions' Den has been in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, since 1965.

Click here for the Scran Resource

 
                 
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  [ related links ]              
    Click for further informationDetail of Rubens engraving   Click for further informationEntry in 1643 Palace inventory   Click for further informationWordworth's poem  
                 
             
                 
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