The subject of the painting of the Babylonian king, Nebachudnezzar, eating grass is taken from the Old Testament Book of Daniel 4:33:

‘The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar: and he was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws.’

In the late nineteenth century Cole noted it hanging over the mantelpiece in the Tiger Room on the first floor. The identity and nationality of the artist is unknown, although it is probably Flemish, seventeenth century.