Bethsabée au bain

Veronese painted this Bathsheba in Venice around 1575, most likely as a marriage picture for a private patron. The story is from the Book of Samuel: King David, walking on his palace roof one evening, sees Bathsheba bathing and sends for her. Veronese dresses it as a scene of Venetian luxury, all silk and jewels and warm architecture, with David just visible watching from a loggia above. In the 1600s the canvas entered the French royal collection and hung at Versailles, where it was enlarged along the top and one side to fit the wooden panelling of its room. It came to Lyon in 1811, sent out from Paris by the state. A restoration in 1991 dealt with those old additions and brought the picture back toward the shape Veronese first gave it.