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By 1654 Rembrandt's life in Amsterdam was getting harder. His companion Hendrickje Stoffels, who was expecting their child, was summoned before the Reformed church council that year and rebuked for living with him unmarried. Their daughter Cornelia was born that October. Around the same time he painted this Flora, the Roman goddess of spring and flowering, holding out a spray of blooms. The face has been linked to Hendrickje, though Rembrandt may not have meant any particular woman. What is unmistakably his is the handling, the deep, sober colour and the thick, worked paint, worlds away from the smooth Flora of Titian he had in mind. He had painted his first wife Saskia as Flora some 20 years earlier.