Daniel in the Lions Den

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Daniel in the Lions Den: Peter Paul Rubens

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Peter Paul Rubens Oil Painting - Daniel in the Lions Den

Keywords: Daniel, Lions

Work Overview: Daniel in the Lions' Den
c. 1614/1616
oil on canvas
224.2 x 330.5 cm (88 1/4 x 130 1/8 in.)

Daniel in the Lions' Den is a 1615 painting by the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.

The subject is from Daniel 6:1-28. Rubens modelled the lions on a Moroccan subspecies, examples of which were then in the Spanish governor's menagerie in Brussels. In 1618 he acquired more than a hundred pieces of classical sculpture, in exchange for this painting, eight others and a sum of money.

Although the painting shows Daniel as a young man,[1] according to the biblical chronology Daniel would have been over eighty years old at the time of the incident depicted.

Daniel had been thrown into the lions' den because he continued to pray to his own god, even though king Darius had forbidden it. One day later the king came to inspect the lions. As the stone covering the den was rolled away, Daniel thanked God for letting him live. When the king saw Daniel still alive, he immediately set him free.

The Old Testament recounts how the Persian king Darius I "The Great" (550–486 BC) condemned the devout and steadfast Daniel to spend the night in a lions' den for worshipping God rather than him. The following morning, after the stone sealing the entrance was rolled away, the astonished Persians saw Daniel, very much alive, giving thanks to God for keeping him safe overnight: "Then said Daniel unto the king, O king, live for ever. My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt." (Daniel 6:21–22) For theologians, Daniel's miraculous survival in the cave symbolized the resurrection of Christ from his tomb, and the promise of God's protection to those of unwavering faith.

During the Reformation, struggling to counter the rising tide of Protestantism, the Catholic Church celebrated the role of early Christian martyrs as a means to excite the faithful to a comparable spirit of religious fervor. Only by having gone through similar depths of despair could an individual truly appreciate the extent of Christ's suffering. Daniel provided a positive exemplar of a martyr who survived harsh persecution through personal faith, strength, constancy, and endurance.

Peter Paul Rubens, one of the greatest masters of the 17th century and a devout Catholic, masterfully combined realism and theatricality in order to draw a strong emotional reaction. Several lions, for instance, stare at us directly, suggesting that we share their space, and, like Daniel, experience the same menace. By portraying them close to life-size with convincing realism, Rubens heightens this immediacy. The lions' lifelike movement and their superbly rendered fur resulted from Rubens's direct observation and sketches he made at the royal menagerie in Brussels. The dramatic lighting and the exaggerated emotionalism of Daniel's prayerful pose add to the veracity. This grand, powerful, vivid image is unquestionably one of Rubens's most memorable artistic achievements during those fertile years following his return to Antwerp from Italy in 1609, at the beginning of the Twelve Years' Truce, when he became court painter to the regents in the Southern Netherlands, Archduke Albert and Archduchess Isabella.

Around 1600, Rubens, who had been trained in classical ideals and philosophy, had traveled from Antwerp to Italy to experience firsthand its artistic traditions, not only those coming from antiquity and the Renaissance, including the work of Raphael and Michelangelo, but also those being created by contemporary artists such as Caravaggio. The inspiration he gained from this multifaceted exposure profoundly affected his own style of painting and became the foundation for his future work. For example, while the lifelike character of the lions reflects Rubens's personal observation of these noble beasts, he also based their poses on ancient sculptures he had seen in Italy. With dramatic and boldly executed canvasses like Daniel in the Lions' Den, Rubens had a long-lasting impact on artists throughout Europe.

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This dissertation evaluates Rubens' Daniel in the Lions' Den (ca. 1614-1618) through an examination of the visual and emblematic sources that likely inspired the artist, as well as the political meaning that it held to Rubens and to its early owners. In my analysis, I reevaluate the all'antica and antique sources that Rubens likely studied to explain how the artist imbued his lions with impressive qualities that exceed naturalism. Through the lens of Josephus' Antiquity of the Jews and Marco Polo's description of the Dry Tree--the legendary site where Alexander the Great defeated Darius III--I reexamine the spiritual and humanist implications of Rubens' adaptation of the antique bust The Dying Alexander for his depiction of Daniel. I also argue that Rubens' visual vocabulary included political imagery related to the Leo Belgicus, the personification of the Netherlands during the Eighty Years' War, and that Rubens' painting reflects the political agenda of the Spanish Habsburgs to maintain control over the Netherlands. It is unclear whether Rubens created Daniel in the Lions' Den first as a studio showpiece or for an unknown patron. Nevertheless, the painting's later life in the collections of Dudley Carleton, English Ambassador to The Hague, Charles I, King of England, and James Hamilton-Douglas, 1st Duke of Hamilton, a courtier to Charles I, reveals that these later owners appropriated Rubens' leonine imagery for their own political ends. Carleton likely gave it to Charles I in 1628 to secure career preferment in the Stuart court. Charles I hung Daniel in the Lions' Den in the Bear Gallery at Whitehall Palace, from 1628 to 1641, to enhance His Majesty's regal authority. In my appraisal of Daniel in the Lions' Den's function in this gallery, I reconstruct the installation of the paintings according to Abraham van der Doort's ca. 1639 inventory, and show how this painting functioned as a pendant to Rubens' Peace and War at the time of Rubens' diplomatic visit to London from May 1629 to March 1630. Finally, I explore the heraldic function of Daniel in the Lions' Den in Hamilton's collection during the Bishops' War.

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Sir Peter Paul Rubens's "Daniel in the Lion's Den" (1614/1616) is a great baroque painting. There aren't many in Washington. Iconoclastic Protestants, who wanted their Bible in words, not in pictures, distrusted baroque heart-stoppers like this one, which frightens and swirls. The National Gallery's rich founders were similarly suspicious of Rubens's painted dramas, which they thought a bit too much.

Daniel, the Old Testament prophet, has been hurled into the lions' den, but he hasn't been eaten. God has preserved him. The stone has just been rolled away, and the miracle revealed, as later at Jesus's tomb.

There weren't a lot of lions in Rubens's Flanders. The painter, however, was able to study two at the Royal Menagerie in Brussels. He put 10 in his picture. These are North African Moroccan lions, now extinct in the wild. Their fangs shine, their tails swish. In "The Luncheon of the Boating Party" at the Phillips Collection, all the women look like the same woman. In "Daniel" at the National Gallery of Art, all of the maned animals are really the same big cat.

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