Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.440
Gallery Label:
According to the Book of Daniel, Belshazzar was a Babylonian king who held a great banquet for his courtiers, wives, and concubines. As they feasted and drank, sacrilegiously using vessels plundered from the temple at Jerusalem, a disembodied hand appeared and wrote the mysterious words “Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin” on the palace wall. The king sent for the prophet Daniel to interpret them, and he revealed that they foretold Belshazzar’s downfall and the destruction of his kingdom. In 1833, the essayist Charles Lamb pointedly likened John Martin’s depiction of the subject in a larger oil version to a lavish banquet thrown by the flamboyant King George IV at the Brighton Pavilion when he was prince regent. Perhaps ironically, Martin dedicated his mezzotint of Belshazzar’s Feast (1826) “to the King’s [George IV’s] Most Excellent Majesty.” Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016
