Belshazzar's Feast

John Martin, 1789–1854

1820

Oil on canvas

Yale Center for British Art

A grand banquet hall is filled with people in opulent attire, some feasting at a long table, while others react with alarm to a supernatural event. Dramatic lighting illuminates the scene, with a dark, stormy sky and architectural elements in the background. 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 fla