The Risen Christ Appearing to Mary Magdalen

Catalogue number: Bredius 559.

The subject is taken from St John's Gospel (Chapter XX, vv.11-17). Christ carries a spade and wears a broad straw hat, the traditional allusion in art to the Magdalen's mistaking him for the gardener. On the back of the panel is a transcript of a poem in Dutch by Rembrandt's friend, Jeremias de Dekker (1609/10-1666); this was first published in 1660 in De Hollantsche Parnas, a poetry anthology which contained several references to Rembrandt.