Jacob's Farewell to Benjamin

Follower of Rembrandt van Rijn · c. 1655

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

113 × 110.5 cm (52 9/16 × 43 1/2 in.); Framed: 161 × 139.1 × 8.6 cm (63 3/8 × 54 3/4 × 3 3/8 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Baroque

This intimate scene from Genesis — the aged patriarch Jacob reluctantly releasing his youngest son Benjamin to travel to Egypt — is rendered with the kind of emotional weight that only the Rembrandt circle could achieve at the height of Dutch Golden Age painting. The work belongs to a group of canvases produced by artists who trained under Rembrandt or absorbed his methods closely enough that attribution has long been contested. Whoever painted it understood chiaroscuro not as a technical exercise but as a language for feeling: the warm light falling across Jacob's hands and Benjamin's upturned face draws the eye to the point of separation, while the surrounding figures dissolve into shadow. The brushwork is loose and observational, favoring psychological truth over decorative finish — qualities that define the Rembrandt school at its best. The Art Institute of Chicago, which has held the painting in its collection, situates it within the broader scholarly conversation about Rembrandt's workshop output in the mid-1650s, a period when his influence on Amsterdam painting was at its deepest. Our hand-painted oil reproduction is made on canvas using traditional techniques and pigments that honour the tonal depth of the original, bringing that quiet drama of parting — and the tenderness it holds — into your home.