• Jeffrey Epstein commissioned a giant oil painting reproduction of The Massacre of the Innocents for his ranch. 
• The violent scene from the Bible, in which Roman soldiers rip baby boys from their mothers’ arms, massacring the children, was popular among the Old Masters. 
• A company called Ocean’s Bridge Group made a copy for $1,999 in 2022.

Visitors to Jeffrey Epstein’s New Mexico home may have been greeted at the entrance by a disturbing scene from the Bible, according to files released by the U.S. Department of Justice. The convicted sex offender, who died of an apparent suicide after his 2019 arrest for sex trafficking minors, commissioned a copy of The Massacre of the Innocents, a 1591 painting by Dutch Golden Age painter Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem.

Epstein’s assistant, Sarah Kellen sent an email in July 2011 asking an employee named Rich Barnett to “Fedex the painting he had made of the Massacre of the Innocents to the ranch. It’s the large 9’x9′ canvas that we had rolled out for him to see in the entry way where they are killing babies.”

It is safe to say that a painting of infanticide is a disturbing choice of home decor, especially for a man known to have sexually abused children—yet another example of Epstein’s twisted taste.

A photo from the Epstein files of Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch outside Santa Fe. Photo courtesy of the Department of Justice.

The artwork was created by Ocean’s Bridge Group, which sells oil painting reproductions of over 175,000 works from art history, for Zorro Ranch, outside Santa Fe. Epstein paid $1,999 for the work, ordering it on December 28, 2010—fitting, as that is actually recognized as the Feast of the Holy Innocents in many Christian denominations.

The feast day comes from a horrifying moment in the Nativity narrative of the Gospel of Matthew. On their way to visit the baby Jesus, the Magi visited King Herod and told him they were searching for the newborn king of the Jews. Fearful that he would be dethroned by this future king, Herod then ordered that all baby boys in Bethlehem under two years old be put to death by Roman soldiers.

This terrible scene has appeared in many works in art history, including paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, Tintoretto, Lucas Cranach the Elder, and Charles Le Brun. Van Haarlem’s version is part of the collection of the Mauritshuis in the Hague, and is on long-term loan to the Franz Hals Museum in Haarlem, the Netherlands.

Jeffrey Epstein commissioned this copy of Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem’s The Massacre of the Innocents (1591) for his New Mexico ranch. Photo courtesy of the Department of Justice.

Epstein’s interest in the subject appears to have been piqued earlier that month, when someone named Mark (last name redacted) emailed him about an elderly man who was looking to arrange a private sale of two Old Master paintings: “He is looking for $45M for the Rubens and $40M for the Caravaggio. These prices are in fact fair when you consider the last major work by Rubens (which this is) was sold in 2002 to the late Kenneth Thomson in Canada for $72M. It was called the ‘Massacre of the Innocents’ and he immediately donated it to the National Art Gallery of Ontario.”

The Epstein files have revealed deeper ties to the art world than originally thought, including how Epstein, a financier, helped oversee art investments for major art collectors Leon Black and Ronald Lauder, trustees of New York’s Museum of Modern Art.