“Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee”
For today, a painting embroiled in one of the largest art heists in history.
This dramatic oil on canvas seascape, titled “Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee,” is by the Dutch Golden Age artist, Rembrandt van Rijn, from 1633. This painting was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts on March 18, 1990. It is still missing today.
Rembrandt painted this early in his career when he was 27 years old. He had just moved to Amsterdam two years prior and was one year away from marriage. During this period, in addition to his commissioned portrait work, Rembrandt had started to paint large scale mythological and biblical scenes, including this piece here.
In “Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee,” Rembrandt deftly depicts a story from the New Testament, in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Mark. Jesus performs a miracle when he calms a storm on the Sea of Galilee. Rembrandt paints the harrowing moment just before the miracle. It is painted after Maerten de Vos’s 1583 print, “The storm on the sea of Galilei”. It is Rembrandt’s only seascape.
In this piece, Jesus is sitting in a boat with his twelve disciples. Rembrandt depicted himself as one of the disciples, looking right at the viewer. The disciples are trying to control their boat while getting tossed on the waves in the storm. The sail to the boat is torn down the middle. Water is sloshing in over the side of the boat. One of the disciples is vomiting into the water. Jesus is sitting among his disciples as they turn to him for help.
The art theft may have been organized by Bobby Donati, a member of the New England Mafia. It is, to this day, the largest art heist in history. Thirteen pieces of art were stolen, including a painting by Johannes Vermeer, several by Rembrandt, Manet, several Degas pieces, a finial that belonged to Napoleon, and an ancient Chinese gu. Donati might have buried the art after stealing it but was murdered in 1991. However, there are other potential suspects, and nothing has yet been proven.
For more on Rembrandt van Rijn, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
