Bathsheba in the Bath

King David is missing here. The Bible says he saw Bathsheba bathing from the roof of his palace and desired her, and Cornelis painted the scene from David's position, so the viewer takes his place, looking at three nude women by the water. Only a small castle in the distance hints at him. Bathsheba sits on the edge of the pool. One maid kneels in the water with her back to us, and the other, a young Black woman, looks straight out of the picture. In 1594 there were very few Africans in the northern Netherlands, and so prominent a place for her is unusual in painting of the time. At the left, half lost in shadow, a fountain takes the form of a naked woman. Cornelis signed the canvas at the lower left with his monogram, CCH, and the year.