Rembrandt, 'A Woman bathing in a Stream (Hendrickje Stoffels?)', 1654

A Woman bathing in a Stream (Hendrickje Stoffels?)

Rembrandt

Room 22

About the work

Overview

Rembrandt’s painting, unique for him in its tender intimacy, shows a young woman almost up to her knees in a stream. She lifts her shift and looks down with a little smile of pleasure at the cool water rippling against her sturdy legs.

Although it’s not certain, this woman may be Hendrickje Stoffels, who came into Rembrandt’s household to look after his infant son after his first wife, Saskia, died. Hendrickje and Rembrandt became lovers but were unable to marry. In the year this picture was painted, Hendrickje endured public humiliation because she was pregnant outside of marriage. Perhaps the painting was a homage to her strength and loyalty.

It has been suggested that the picture is a study for a biblical heroine in a much larger picture, but the plain shift the woman wears is enough to raise a doubt: such a heroine would have been richly dressed or nude. The most likely possibility is that Rembrandt knew and loved this quiet, gently absorbed woman and shared her delight in an unguarded moment of pleasure in some anonymous Dutch stream.

In-depth

This painting is so immediate, so tenderly intimate, that we sense the young woman he depicted was precious to the ageing Rembrandt. But he doesn‘t make it easy for us to understand why. We don’t know who she is, where she is and whether the image is posed or something remembered.

Mellow light bathes her high forehead and her neck and breast, giving her flesh a soft bloom. Her face is plump and wholesome; her thick auburn hair is caught back but threatens to tumble about her shoulders – a stray ringlet and a tiny earring tickle her cheek. But her sturdy legs and slightly puffed knees, perfectly reflected in the stream, speak of demanding physical work and someone unused to leisure. She looks down with a little smile at the sensation of the water. Tiny ripples bubble against her skin as she wades forward, feeling her way carefully with a foot, lifting her shift in case it should get wet.

This shift is quickly painted in thick strokes in many different tones of white, suggesting a coarse fabric such as cambric. Baggy and shapeless, sleeves carelessly rolled back, the low neck slips off the woman’s shoulder, almost revealing her breasts. This isn‘t the garment of a wealthy client perhaps wanting an unconventional portrait, yet behind the woman is a heap of heavy red and gold brocade of some value. Does this belong to her? Is it simply a prop left behind after one of the dressing up sessions for a history painting that Rembrandt was making?

Some have suggested that this is a sketch or a study for a painting of a mythological or biblical heroine (Rembrandt painted several of these, but such characters are usually richly dressed or shown nude). The most likely is Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, a general in the army of King David. David saw Bathsheba bathing and desired her. Wanting to marry her himself, David sent her husband into the thick of battle to ensure his death. Sometimes Bathsheba is shown in paintings as a temptress, in others as David’s victim, with no choice but to succumb to him because of his status. Rembrandt chose the second version for his great painting of Bathsheba that is now in the Louvre, Paris.

What has this to do with the young woman in this picture, seemingly so unaware of her own allure? It has been suggested that this is a preparatory study for Rembrandt’s painting of Bathsheba. Both were painted in the same year, 1654, and both portray a woman in or near water with rich, heavy fabric nearby – Bathsheba sits, the woman here stands. The settings are equally imprecise, dark shadowy places quickly painted and left simply as a background to the figure of the woman. But is it the same woman?

Like the image of the unknown woman, Rembrandt’s Bathsheba seems very real, not an imaginary ideal. Although entirely nude, she is physically similar: wide hipped with a rounded belly and small breasts. The women share the same auburn hair, though Bathsheba’s is more artfully arranged and a ribbon brushes her bare shoulder. The faces bear similarities – the high, round foreheads and the noses are alike, although in both cases their lowered eyes can’t be seen.

But it appears that whoever she is, the woman in the stream isn't likely to be posing as a historic heroine. It does seem likely that she posed for Bathsheba but at some other time, and that this is not a study for the Louvre painting. The plain cambric shift is enough to raise a doubt. The most likely possibility is that Rembrandt knew and loved this quiet, gently absorbed woman and shared her delight in an unguarded moment of pleasure in some anonymous Dutch stream.

Hendrickje Stoffels came into Rembrandt’s household to look after his infant son after his first wife, Saskia, died. She is thought to have posed for several of his paintings including a portrait, but there is no evidence to confirm this. Although Hendrickje and Rembrandt became lovers, they were unable to marry because, by the terms of Saskia’s will, he would have lost a considerable amount of income if he did so. In the year that this picture was painted, Hendrickje was 28 years old. She had been subjected to public humiliation and was denied the Eucharist because she had become pregnant outside marriage with their first child, Cornelia. Perhaps the painting was a homage to her strength, endurance and loyalty.

Whoever this woman is, Rembrandt’s revolutionary technique – leaving the warm buff colour of the ground uncovered in places to create shadows, stroking wet paint into wet rough ridges to create texture – enabled him to do what he did best: portray a deep understanding of human emotions. In this picture, it’s not only the woman’s emotions that we sense, but also, it seems, Rembrandt’s own.

Want to find out more?

Delve deeper and explore the catalogue entry for this painting.

Key facts

Details

Full title: A Woman bathing in a Stream (Hendrickje Stoffels?)
Artist: Rembrandt
Artist dates: 1606 - 1669
Date made: 1654
Medium and support: oil on wood
Dimensions: 61.8 × 47 cm
Inscription summary: Signed; Dated
Acquisition credit: Holwell Carr Bequest, 1831
Inventory number: NG54
Location: Room 22
Collection: Main Collection
Previous owners: Revd William Holwell Carr
Frame: 17th-century Dutch Frame

Provenance

Possibly in the Andrew Hay sale (of ‘Pictures . . . collected abroad’), London, 4–5 May 1739 (1st day, lot 20), (£6.19s.) almost certainly in the [Blackwood] sale, 18–19 March 1756 (1st day, lot 60), bought by Raymond (£19.8s.6d.). It was in the collection of Baron Gwydyr (possibly acquired after 1811); Lord Gwydyr sale, London, 8–9 May 1829 (2nd day, lot 72), bought by the Revd William Holwell Carr (165 gns). Holwell Carr Bequest, 1831.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Neil MacLaren, revised and expanded by Christopher Brown, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School: 1600–1900’, London 1991; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2008

Picasso et les Maîtres

Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais

8 October 2008 - 2 February 2009
2014

Rembrandt: The Late Works

The National Gallery (London)

15 October 2014 - 18 January 2015

Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

12 February 2015 - 17 May 2015
2017

Rubens and Rembrandt

The National Gallery (London)

22 March 2017 - 6 August 2017
2018

Rembrandt: Britain's Discovery of the Master

Scottish National Gallery

7 July 2018 - 14 October 2018
2019

Velázquez, Rembrandt, Vermeer. Parallel Visions

Museo Nacional del Prado

25 June 2019 - 29 September 2019
2019

Rembrandt's Light

Dulwich Picture Gallery

4 October 2019 - 2 February 2020

Bibliography

1830

J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters: In Which is Included a Short Biographical Notice of the Artists, with a Copious Description of Their Principal Pictures […], vol. 2, London 1830
1854

G.F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being and Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss. […], vol. 2, trans. E. Eastlake, London 1854
1877

C. Vosmaer, Rembrandt: Sa vie et ses oeuvres, La Haye 1877
1893

É. Michel, Rembrandt, sa vie, son oeuvre et son temps, Paris 1893
1897

W. von Bode and C. Hofstede de Groot, The Complete Work of Rembrandt, 8 vols, Paris 1897
1907

C. Hofstede de Groot, Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, 10 vols, London 1907
1922

A.P. Laurie, 'The Authenticity of Rembrandts', The Connoisseur, LXII, 1922, pp. 191-6
1927

M. Eisler, Der alte Rembrandt, Vienna 1927
1931

A. Burroughs, 'New Illustrations of Rembrandt's Style', The Burlington Magazine, LIX/340, 1931, pp. 3-10
1947

P. Hendy, An Exhibition of Cleaned Pictures of 1947: (1936-1947), London 1947
1950

J.R.H. Weaver, 'The Weaver Report on the Cleaning of Pictures in the National Gallery. Part I', Museum, III/2, 1950, pp. 113-76
1953

F. Simpson, 'Dutch Paintings in England Before 1760', The Burlington Magazine, XCV/599, 1953, pp. 39-42
1960

Maclaren, Neil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School, 2 vols, London 1960
1969

R. Hamann, Rembrandt, Berlin 1969
1969

P.J.J. van Thiel, Rembrandt 1669/1969 (exh. cat. Rijksmuseum, 13 September - 30 November 1969), Amsterdam 1969
1977

C. Brown and J. Plesters, 'Rembrandt's Portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels, I', Apollo, CVI, 1977, pp. 286-91
1980

E. Bilardello, 'L'astrattismo: Percorso e genesi', Storia dell'arte, 38-40, 1980, pp. 393-402
1988

S. Alpers, Rembrandt's Enterprise: The Studio and the Market, London 1988
1988

J. Gregory and I. Zdanowicz, Rembrandt in the Collections of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 1988
1988

D. Bomford et al., Rembrandt (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 12 October 1988 - 17 January 1989), London 1988
1989

H. Ruessink, 'Hendrickje Stoffels, Jongedochter van Bredevoort', Kroniek van het Rembrandthuis, XLI/1, 1989, pp. 19-24
1990

G. Néret, L'érotisme en peinture, Paris 1990
1991

Maclaren, Neil, revised by Christopher Brown, National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School, 1600-1900, 2nd edn (revised and expanded), 2 vols, London 1991
1991

C. Brown, J. Kelch and P.J.J. van Thiel, Rembrandt: The Master and his Workshop (exh. cat. Gemäldegalerie SMPK at the Altes Museum, 12 September - 10 November 1991; Rijksmuseum, 4 December - 1 March 1992; The National Gallery, London, 25 March - 24 May 1992), New Haven 1991
1993

C. Tümpel, Rembrandt: All Paintings in Colour, Antwerp 1993
1993

G. Cavalli-Björkman, 'Rembrandt's The Kitchen Maid. Problems of Provenance and Iconography', in Rembrandt and his Pupils, Stockholm 1993, pp. 68-76
1996

J. Leja, 'Rembrandt's "Woman Bathing in a Stream"', Simiolus, XXIV/4, 1996, pp. 321-7
1999

S. Schama, Rembrandt's Eyes, New York 1999
2000

C. Wright, Rembrandt, Paris 2000
2000

R. Morphet et al., Encounters: New Art from Old (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 14 June - 17 September 2000), London 2000
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
2006

P. Crenshaw, Rembrandt's Bankruptcy: The Artist, His Patrons, and the Art Market in Seventeenth-Century Netherlands, Cambridge 2006
2006

L. de Vries, 'Enkele opmerkingen over Rembrandts eensaeme historien', Kroniek van het Rembrandthuis, 1-2, 2006, pp. 34-41
2006

M. Westermann, 'Les vies de Rembrandt', Perspective, 4, 2006, pp. 557-84
2006

D. Bomford et al., Rembrandt (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 12 October 1988 - 17 January 1989), London 2006
2006

H.T. Colenbrander, '"The waters are come unto my soul" (Psalm LXIX.2 David): Rembrandt's "A Woman Bathing in A Stream" in London's National Gallery', in M.R. Abbing (ed.), Rembrandt 2006: Essays, Leiden 2006, pp. 57-62
2007

M.E. Wieseman and E. Greer, Dutch Painting: The National Gallery, London 2007
2007

A. Golahny, 'Selective Attention: Julius S. Held's Rembrandt Studies', Oud Holland, CXX/3-4, 2007, pp. 181-90

Frame

This is a seventeenth-century Dutch frame, made from ebony. The bolection moulding has an intricate edge roll, fine lines, steps and cavettos. This is followed by a cushion moulding. A Dutch strip moulding leads to a reverse section, followed by a further strip moulding at the sight edge. Veneers are laid in to the curves and flats.

This frame was fitted to Rembrandt’s A Woman bathing in a Stream (Hendrickje Stoffels?) in 2016. The frame retains its antique hanging hooks on the reverse of the frame (now decorative).

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

Images

Insights

Bart Cornelis, Curator of Dutch and Flemish paintings, 1600-1800, discusses Rembrandt's 'A Woman Bathing in a Stream'.

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A guide to Rembrandt's 'A Woman Bathing in a Stream (Hendrickje Stoffels?)' | National Gallery

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