The Suicide of Saul
The original, as its museum records it
Every line above is reproduced from the holding institution’s own catalogue entry, which is linked. Where their title, date or attribution differs from ours, theirs is the one printed here.
The file this print is made from
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View in the galleryAbout this painting
Bruegel wrote the reference on the panel: SAVL. XXXI. CAPIT., Saul, chapter thirty-one. The chapter is the battle on Mount Gilboa between Israelites and Philistines, which the Kunsthistorisches Museum describes as ending in defeat and King Saul's suicide, at the left of the picture.
The museum lists the readings scholars have offered: punished pride, the folly and perversity of the world, human delusion, vanitas, or the landscape as the true subject, with humankind carried along by nature. It endorses none of them.
The battle fills the panel. The king's death is at the left.
Sources: Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, 'Selbstmord Sauls', GG 1011, read 2026-09-24
Then Saul said to his armourbearer: Draw thy sword, and kill me: lest these uncircumcised come, and slay me, and mock at me. And his armourbearer would not: for he was struck with exceeding great fear. Then Saul took his sword, and fell upon it.
I Samuel 31:4 · Douay-Rheims (Challoner)
Printed on demand. Public-domain masterwork, reproduced from a 46,032 px master of the original. The whole image is printed — never cropped to fit the sheet — so every sheet carries an archival margin, and the dimensions and resolution listed above are the ones you receive.