ASSOCIATED OBJECTS

Moses with the Tablets of the Law by Krüger after a painting by Rembrandt

LFRD 4867

Rembrandt’s painting Moses and the Tablets of the Law shows the prophet brandishing the tablets just prior to shattering them. Freud found this subject fascinating. In his analysis of Michelangelo’s sculpture of Moses (1914), Freud suggests that the artist had reinterpreted the biblical passage to show Moses refraining from breaking the tablets and thus renouncing his instinct.