Minerva in Her Study

In 1635 Rembrandt had just set up on his own in Amsterdam, ambitious and determined to be taken seriously as a history painter, which in his world was the top of the profession. To prove it he painted a series of near life-size women from antiquity, Bellona, Artemisia, Flora, and this one, Minerva, goddess of both war and wisdom. He shows her not in battle but as a scholar who has looked up from a heavy folio, her armour and shield pushed into the shadows behind her. The gold thread of her gown and the great open book catch nearly all the light in the room. She was one of a set that he used, in effect, as an advertisement for what a young painter out of Leiden could do.