(ARTWORK)

Rembrandt painted the The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq between
1640 and 1642 which became his most famous work.[81] This picture was called De
Nachtwacht by the Dutch and The Night Watch by Sir Joshua Reynolds because by
1781 the picture was so dimmed and defaced that it was almost indistinguishable, and it
looked quite like a night scene. After it was cleaned, it was discovered to represent
broad day—a party of 18 musketeers stepping from a gloomy courtyard into the
blinding sunlight. For Théophile Thoré it was the prettiest painting in the world.
(THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON)
In the painting, the son has returned home in a wretched state from travels in which he
has wasted his inheritance and fallen into poverty and despair. He kneels before his
father in repentance, wishing for forgiveness and the position of a servant in his
father's household, having realized that even his father's servants had a better station
in life than he. His father receives him with a tender gesture and welcomes him as his
own son. His hands seem to suggest mothering and fathering at once; the left appears
larger and more masculine, set on the son's shoulder, while the right is softer and more
receptive in gesture.[3] Standing at the right is the prodigal son's older brother, who
crosses his hands in judgment; in the parable he objects to the father's compassion for
the sinful son:
(DANAE)
Disappointed by his lack of male heirs, King Acrisius asked the oracle of Delphi if this
would change. The oracle announced to him that he would never have a son, but his
daughter would, and that he would be killed by his daughter's son. At the time, Danaë
was childless and, meaning to keep her so, King Acrisius shut her up in a bronze
chamber to be constructed under the court of his palace (other versions say she was
imprisoned in a tall brass tower with a single richly adorned chamber, but with no
doors or windows, just a sky-light as the source of light and air). She was buried in this
tomb, never to see the light again. However, Zeus, the king of the gods, desired her, and
came to her in the form of golden rain which streamed in through the roof of the
subterranean chamber and down into her womb. Soon after, their child Perseus was
born.
(THE ANATOMY LESSON OF DR. NICOLAES TULP)
In the work, Nicolaes Tulp is pictured explaining the musculature of the arm to a group
of doctors. Some of the spectators are various doctors who paid commissions to be
included in the painting. The painting is signed in the top-left hand corner Rembrandt.
f[ecit] 1632. This may be the first instance of Rembrandt signing a painting with his
forename (in its original form) as opposed to the monogram RHL (Rembrandt
Harmenszoon of Leiden), and is thus a sign of his growing artistic confidence.
(THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON BY REMBRANDT)