Abraham entertaining the Angels

This scene from the Old Testament depicts the moment the long tested Abraham is given the news, as he is hosting three strangers who reveal themselves as two angels and the Lord Himself, that his wife Sarah would bear him a son within a year. As the devout Abraham serves his divine guests and bows humbly, Sarah listens in from behind the door and smiles in disbelief. Unusually for the time, Rembrandt chose to distinguish God clearly from the two angels, who themselves are friendly, yet rather pedestrian looking individuals, a far cry from the angelic stereotype. The composition of the figures seated in a semi-circle on the ground in front of a food platter is based on a Mogul miniature, which Rembrandt knew and copied in a drawing (now in the British Museum), dated around the same time as the present print. The miniature itself has also survived and is kept at the Albertina in Vienna. The plate is also in existence and was rediscovered at Christie's in 1997 on the back of an oil painting by Pieter Gysels (1620-91). It is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

The present impression compares well with the Cracherode impression (F,4 .41) in the British Museum.