Lion Hunt, 1641 by Rembrandt

As has often been noted, the year 1642 - marked by the death of Saskia and the painting of the Night Watch - was a turning point in Rembrandt's career, both personally and artistically. Up to that time, baroque compositions of dynamic action and reaction abound, from the Stoning of St Stephen to the Blinding of Samson and thence to the Night Watch itself. Certain of these anticipate the Night Watch in their overall design and pictorial strategy, among them Rembrandt's most ambitious etching of a Lion Hunt, which dates from immediately before it, in 1641.