Rembrandt and ‘The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis’ — Great artwork is never done to please the client.
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, not only produced some of the most famous artworks of all time, paintings such as the Night watch, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee and Self-Portrait with Two Circles, but he is also considered to be one of the greatest artists in the history of his craft.
He was a master of portraying human emotions, illuminating a scene with light and telling a story within his visual work.
One of his lesser-known paintings, The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis, was commissioned by The Amsterdam City council for a new town hall (now called The Royal Palace). Originally, it was completed as part of twelve paintings ordered by the council to be done by Govert Flink (who was previously one of Rembrandt’s art pupils), but due to his unfortunate and sudden death, the paintings were distributed amongst other artists.
Rembrandt was one of the artists commissioned to paint scenes from The Batavian Rebellion (69–70 AD). The rebellion by the former inhabitants of Holland against the Romans was based on Tacitus’s, The Histories. Tacitus was one of the…
