A Woman bathing in a Stream (Hendrickje Stoffels?)

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REMBRANDT VAN RIJN, 1606–1669
54 A Woman bathing in a Stream (Hendrickje Stoffels?)

Neil MacLaren, revised and expanded by Christopher Brown, 1991

Extracted from:
Neil MacLaren; revised and expanded by Christopher Brown, The Dutch School 1600–1900 (London: National Gallery Publications Limited, 1991).

Plate 282

Signed on the bank, bottom left: Rembrandt f 1654.¹

**Vol. 2, p. 471, 1**
Signatures: Rembrandt (No. 54) © The National Gallery, London

Oil on oak, 61.8 × 47 cm (245⁄16 × 18½).

Cleaned in 1946.

PENTIMENTI: There are pentimenti in the top of the head, the right shoulder and upper arm, and the drapery on the bank behind the woman.

The ground, like those of the other panel paintings by Rembrandt in the National Gallery, is chalk with a thin, warm brown imprimatura on the surface.²

Discussion

The model for the bathing woman is probably Hendrickje Stoffels, the artist’s mistress. For Hendrickje’s biography and a full discussion of this identification, see under No. 6432 of this catalogue.

In July 1654, the year in which this picture was painted, Hendrickje was summoned before the Council of the Reformed Church in Amsterdam and admonished for living with Rembrandt ‘like a whore’ and was banned from ‘celebration of the Lord’s Supper’. Rembrandt and Hendrickje’s only child, a daughter named Cornelia, was baptised [page 1.333]on 30 October 1654. Hendrickje would have been about 28 when this picture was painted. It was the year in which she suffered public humiliation because of her liaison with Rembrandt and bore his child. It is possible that this work, showing the artist’s mistress in the guise of an Old Testament heroine or a goddess, such as Susannah, Bathsheba or Diana, had an intensely personal significance.³ The rich robe lying on the bank would support such an identification.

The picture displays a spontaneity and freedom in the handling of paint which have few parallels in Rembrandt’s work (this can be seen on the surface and, even more strikingly, in the X‐radiograph). It appears unfinished in some parts, but was clearly finished to Rembrandt’s satisfaction as he signed and dated it. Its size and support might suggest that it was a sketch for a larger history painting, but no such painting is known and, unlike Rubens, Rembrandt did not usually make preliminary oil sketches for larger projects.

COPY: A small watercolour pastiche by Hercules Brabazon Brabazon (1821–1906) was in an Anon. sale, London, 15 May 1946 (lot 26).

PROVENANCE: Possibly in the Andrew Hay sale (of ‘Pictures … collected abroad’), London, 4–5 May 1739 (1st day, lot 20),⁴ (£6.19s.) almost certainly in the [Blackwood] sale, 18–19 March 1756 (1st day, lot 60),⁵ bought by Raymond (£19.8s.6d.).⁶ It was in the collection of Baron Gwydyr (possibly acquired after 1811);⁷ 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.

EXHIBITIONS: London 1947–8, No. 68; London 1988–9, No. 11.

REFERENCES:

General: Smith No. 165; Bode and HdG , vol. 5, No. 353; HdG No. 306; Bauch No. 27B; Bredius, Rembrandt, No. 437.

In text:

1. MacLaren incorrectly read the date as 1655. (Back to text.)

2. For a full technical description, see London 1988–9, pp. 96–101. (Back to text.)

3. In this respect it recalls Het Pelsken (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum), Rubens’s portrait of his young, second wife Helène Fourment in the guise of Titian’s Venus. See also J. S. Held, ‘Rembrandt and the Classical World’ in Rembrandt after Three Hundred Years: a Symposium, Chicago, 1974, pp. 55–6. (Back to text.)

4. ‘Rembrandt. A Woman going into a Bath.’ (Back to text.)

5. ‘Rembrandt A Woman going into the Water holding her Coats pretty high, and laughing at what she sees reflected.’ 25 × 19 in. The identification was suggested by F. Simpson in BM , vol. 95, 1953, p. 40; the description quoted there (p. 42) was taken from an eighteenth‐century MS copy of the sale catalogue and is faulty. Mr Simpson has since identified the sale with that held on 18–19 March 1756, of which there exists a printed catalogue; the description given above is taken from this. (Back to text.)

6. MacLaren suggested that it might have been lot 76 in the second day of the Pond sale, 1759: ‘A woman going into a Bath Rembrandt’ (Simpson, op. cit. , p. 42) which was bought by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Francis Broun (Sir Joshua’s Rembrandts, to be published shortly in the proceedings of the Reynolds symposium held at the RA in 1986) has, however, established that this lot was more probably a Susanna at the Bath, now in the Louvre (Smith No. 618; HdG Nos. 58 and 61b), which Pond had owned since 1739. (Back to text.)

7. The picture is not in a MS list of paintings belonging to Baron Gwydyr at Grimsthorpe Castle, corrected up to 1 January 1812 (a copy of which is in the National Gallery library). (Back to text.)

Abbreviations

BM: Burlington Magazine, London, 1903–

3 Other Abbreviations

RA: Royal Academy of Arts, London; Royal Academician

List of archive references cited

London, National Gallery, Library: MS list of paintings belonging to Baron Gwydyr at Grimsthorpe Castle, corrected up to 1 January 1812

List of references cited

Bauch 1966: Bauch, K., Rembrandt Gemälde, Berlin 1966
Bode and Hofstede de Groot 1897–1906: Bode, W. and C. Hofstede de Groot, The Complete Work of Rembrandt, 8 vols, Paris 1897–1906
Bomford, Brown and Roy 1988: Bomford, David, Christopher Brown, Ashok Roy, with contributions from Jo Kirby and Raymond White, Art in the Making: Rembrandt, London 1988
Bredius 1969: Bredius, A., revised by H. Gerson, Rembrandt, third edition, London 1969
Broun 1986: Broun, Francis, Sir Joshua’s Rembrandts, 1986
Davies 1959: Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The British School, revised edn, London 1959
Davies and Gould 1970: Davies, Martin, revised by Cecil Gould, National Gallery Catalogues: French School Early 19th Century, Impressionists, Post‐Impressionists, etc., London 1970
Held 1974: Held, J. S., ‘Rembrandt and the Classical World’, in Rembrandt after Three Hundred Years: a Symposium, Chicago 1974
Hofstede de Groot 1907–28: Hofstede de Groot, C., Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, 10 vols (vols 9 and 10 are in German), London, Stuttgart and Paris 1907–28
Simpson 1953: Simpson, F., in The Burlington Magazine, 1953, 95
Smith 1829–42: Smith, John, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters … (with Supplement), 9 vols, London 1829–42

List of exhibitions cited

London, National Gallery 1947–8: London, National Gallery, An Exhibition of Cleaned Pictures (1936–1947), 1947–8
London, National Gallery 1988–9: London, National Gallery, Art in the Making: Rembrandt, 12 October 1988–17 January 1989 (exh. cat.: Bomford, Brown and Roy 1988)

Explanatory Notes on the Catalogue

SEQUENCE The paintings are arranged alphabetically according to the name of the artist or school.

ATTRIBUTION A picture catalogued under the name of the artist is considered to be by him. ‘Attributed to’ qualifies the attribution. ‘Ascribed to’ indicates a greater degree of doubt. ‘Workshop of’ or ‘Follower of’ are self‐explanatory. ‘Style of’ indicates that the painting is an imitation or copy painted after the artist’s lifetime. A list of attributions which have been changed from the first edition of this catalogue (published in 1960) is given on pages 510–13.

INVENTORY NUMBER The National Gallery inventory number is to be found to the left of the picture title.

MEASUREMENTS These are given in centimetres, followed by inches in brackets. Height precedes width.

RIGHT and LEFT These indicate the viewer’s right and left, unless the context clearly implies the contrary.

BIOGRAPHIES MacLaren’s biographical notes on painters have been expanded and brought up to date when there is no accessible and reliable modern literature. Where such literature exists, these notes have been kept to a minimum.

REFERENCES The bibliographical references, though selective, include publications which appeared before mid‐1989. References to books and articles which appeared subsequently and which the author considered to be of importance are referred to within square brackets but could not be taken into account in the catalogue entries themselves.

LISTS AND INDEXES At the back of this volume are lists of paintings acquired since the last edition of this catalogue and changed attributions. There are also indexes to religious subjects, profane subjects, topography, previous owners, years of acquisition and inventory number.

ILLUSTRATIONS The plates of the paintings included in the catalogue are in the second volume, together with all the signatures which could be reproduced. The comparative plates are included in Volume 1.

[page 1.xiv]

VAN ‘van’ has been used in lower case throughout in accordance with The Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors. The ‘van’ has been omitted for certain artists as is customary, e.g. ‘Jacob van Ruisdael’, but ‘Ruisdael’.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES ‘ op. cit. ’ may refer back to books and articles referred to under the artist’s biography (rather than in the particular catalogue entry).

CHRISTIE’S AND SOTHEBY’S Unless another location is mentioned, the sales referred to took place in London.

CLEANING The cleaning of paintings which took place before 1945 is not referred to, unless the circumstances were exceptional.

CONDITION All the paintings have been examined during the preparation of this catalogue. In many cases the condition is described, sometimes in considerable detail. If the condition is not described, the painting can be presumed to be in good condition.

PROVENANCE AND EXHIBITIONS There are separate headings for provenance and exhibitions in individual catalogue entries. In certain cases, when nineteenth‐century paintings were included in dealers’ exhibitions for example, these two sections have been conflated , .

VAN GOGH The National Gallery’s four paintings by Van Gogh (Inv. nos. 3861, 3862, 3863 and 4169) are not catalogued in this volume but in The French School by Cecil Gould.

CORNELIUS JOHNSON The one painting (Inv. no. 6280) in the National Gallery by Johnson, who was born in London of Dutch parents but moved to the Netherlands after the outbreak of the Civil War, is not included in this catalogue but in The British School by Martin Davies.

Explanatory note

This volume contains the illustrations for the catalogue of the Dutch School published in Volume 1.

The pictures and their attributions are discussed in detail in the catalogue; in this volume only the title, the artist (or attribution) and the inventory number are given.

At the end of the volume are plates of all the signatures that could be reproduced. In the interest of clarity some of these have been enlarged.

About this version

Version 1, generated from files NM_CB_1991__16.xml dated 14/10/2024 and database__16.xml dated 16/10/2024 using stylesheet 16_teiToHtml_externalDb.xsl dated 14/10/2024. Structural mark-up applied to skeleton document in full; document updated to use external database of archival and bibliographic references; entries for NG6483, NG6458, NG830, NG4503, NG835, NG6444, NG212, NG54, NG221, NG672, NG1675, NG6350, NG990, NG2531, NG6442, NG871, NG1383, NG2568 and NG6522 proofread and prepared for publication; entries for NG1383, NG2568, NG54, NG5417, NG6458, NG6522, NG672 and NG835 proofread following mark-up and corrected.

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Permalink (this version): https://data.ng.ac.uk/0874-000B-0000-0000
Permalink (latest version): https://data.ng.ac.uk/086U-000B-0000-0000
Chicago style: MacLaren, Neil and Christopher Brown. "54 A Woman bathing in a Stream (Hendrickje Stoffels?)". 1991, online version 1, October 17, 2024. https://data.ng.ac.uk/0874-000B-0000-0000.
Harvard style: MacLaren, Neil and Brown, Christopher (1991) 54 A Woman bathing in a Stream (Hendrickje Stoffels?). Online version 1, London: National Gallery, 2024. Available at: https://data.ng.ac.uk/0874-000B-0000-0000 (Accessed: 28 October 2024).
MHRA style: MacLaren, Neil and Christopher Brown, 54 A Woman bathing in a Stream (Hendrickje Stoffels?) (National Gallery, 1991; online version 1, 2024) <https://data.ng.ac.uk/0874-000B-0000-0000> [accessed: 28 October 2024]