Maarten van Heemskerck
Triptych of the Entombment: Detail, Jeremiah
1559-60
oil on oak panel, 86.2 x 25.9 in. (219 x 66 cm.)
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
The chains on Jeremiah's neck and feet refer to God's command to the prophet in Jeremiah 27:2-6: "Make thee bands, and chains: and thou shalt put them on thy neck and… thus shall you say to your masters: 'I made the earth, and the men, and the beasts that are upon the face of the earth, by my great power, and by my stretched out arm: and I have given it to whom it seemed good in my eyes.… And now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon my servant'"
It is possible that the rocks at the bottom of the painting refer to Jeremiah's martyrdom. He was stoned by his fellow refugees from Jerusalem who resented his having predicted that their behavior would lead to the destruction of that city.
Sometimes Jeremiah is pictured as he is here, an adult in middle age, but he is more commonly presented in the more prophet-like guise of an old man with a white beard. His red garment is not unprecedented.
Read more about images of Jeremiah.
Source: this page at Wikimedia Commons.
