Bathsheba at Her Bath

The summer Rembrandt painted this, his life was under public scrutiny. In 1654 his partner Hendrickje Stoffels, pregnant and about twenty years his junior, was summoned before the Amsterdam church council and accused of living in sin with the painter. Most artists telling the Bathsheba story showed the exciting part, King David spying on her from a rooftop. Rembrandt cut all of that away. He paints only the woman, alone, holding the letter that has just summoned her to a king she cannot refuse, her eyes lowered and gone somewhere far off. Whoever posed, and it is usually taken to be Hendrickje herself, her expression carries a real sadness that fits the year around it. She gave birth to their daughter that October. The picture entered the Louvre with a great gift of paintings in 1869.