Alexander Heubel a biblical depiction of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego being thrown into the fiery furnace (1841–44) commissioned in Rome by the Empress consort of Russia Alexandra Feodorovna and later hung at Ropsha Palace; an altarpiece at St. James's Cathedral in Riga of the Ascension of Christ (1845); a depiction of Job and his three friends, painted in Düsseldorf; a study of the head of an old man, once in the Brederlo Gallery. They also include a painting of the Holy Family in the collections of the Latvian National Museum of Art; a portrait of the painter Theobald von Oer (1844), painted
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is generally accepted that the Book of Daniel originated as a collection of folktales among the Jewish community in Babylon and Mesopotamia in the Persian and early Hellenistic periods (5th to 3rd centuries BCE), expanded by the visions of chapters 7-12 in the Maccabean era (mid-2nd century). Modern scholarship agrees that Daniel is a legendary figure. It is possible that the name was chosen for the hero of the book because of his reputation as a wise seer in Hebrew tradition. The tales are in the voice of an anonymous narrator, except for chapter 4 which is in the form