Rembrandt made Jesus appear taller than the other figures in the painting, symbolizing his moral superiority.

The story of Rembrandt's Saul and David is murky until 1830, when it was sold to a Parisian duke. Sometime after that it was split down the middle -- possibly by an unscrupulous dealer who thought he'd make more money selling two paintings -- then eventually stitched back together.

Rembrandt's Syndics of the Drapers' Guild, also known as The Sampling Officials, depicts a group of drapers elected to assess the quality of cloth that weavers offered for sale to members of their guild.

"A painting is not made to be sniffed."

Abraham cover's his son Isaac's face as he prepares to take his life.

On the morning of March 18, 1990, thieves disguised as police officers broke into the the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts and stole The Storm on the Sea of Galilee and 12 other works. It is considered the biggest art theft in U.S. history and remains unsolved. The museum still displays the paintings' empty frames in their original locations.

Diana Bathing with Her Nymphs depicts not one, but two episodes from Ovid's magnum opus. On the left, Actaeon is punished for seeing the goddess Diana naked by being turned into a stag and killed by his own hounds. On the right, Diana's other nymphs are tearing off Callisto's clothing to reveal how she has broken her vow of chastity and is now carrying Jupiter's child.

In Rembrandt's time, peacocks were a delicacy for the well-to-do: the meat was used as filling for pasties. After being slaughtered, the birds were hung upside down to drain their blood, as Rembrandt has depicted in Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl.

"A painting is complete when it has the shadows of a god."

For a long time, the attribution of The Mill to Rembrandt was regarded as doubtful; it has been restored in recent years, although it is not universally accepted.