Description
In Abraham’s Sacrifice, an angel reaches down from the upper right to grasp Abraham’s arms and interrupt the action. Isaac lies low at the left, close to the foreground altar, while the angel’s wings extend above the central encounter. Rembrandt gives the sudden intervention a bodily form, bringing the intended action and its interruption into close contact within the same compact space.
Made in 1655, the work combines etching and drypoint. Rembrandt brings the subject into the close visual language of a print, allowing the event to be encountered through the arrangement of bodies rather than through a long written account. Its meaning depends on the interruption of an action already underway. The image invites attention to that suspended moment, where the familiar story is held between an intended sacrifice and the possibility of a different outcome.
Read our guide to giclée prints or browse the Rembrandt collection.
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