Abstract
Although Rembrandt's "Sacrifice of Manoah" (Dresden Gemaldegalerie) has the signature "Rembrandt f. 1641", there has been discussion about its date and even authenticity, mainly from the point of view of its style. Fritz Saxl, the first to study carefully the drawings connected with this picture, concluded that it was first executed in 1641, but that the most important motif of this picture, the figure of an ascending angel, must have been added later, around the end of the forties at the earliest. Against this opinion, however, Otto Benesch contends that the Dresden picture was executed by a pupil, and only retouched by the master himself around the middle of the fifties. My own opinion agrees with that of Saxl, although the figure of the angel may date from the middle of the fifties. Why did Rembrandt finally omit the wings from the angel? According to Saxl, the answer should be found in Rembrandt's strict adherence to the text itself. But I believe that Rembrandt's intention was to make the angel appear as similar to a man as possible.
