Cornelis van Poelenburgh, 'Women bathing in a Landscape', about 1630

For those living in Utrecht in the 1630s, this painting must have seemed like a window onto an exotic, tempting world. A crowd of naked women pose elegantly while they talk and bathe in a river. Behind them loom the overgrown tower and arches of a Roman ruin, while the bright morning sky glows behind the farmhouses, foothills and distant mountains of what would have been immediately recognisable as an Italian landscape.

This fantasy world is a very long way from the level pastures, grey skies, neat gables and modest fashion of contemporary Holland. No wonder then that paintings like this proved so popular at the time: they offered a vision of the warm south and intellectual references to the lost world of the classics, as well as an excuse to enjoy female nudity.

Several Dutch artists of the time travelled to train and study in Rome and profited from what they had seen and learnt when they came home, developing a lucrative market for paintings in this genre. Van Poelenburgh spent a decade in Italy from 1617 to 1627 and so was one of those who had experienced the light, landscapes and ruins for himself. On his return he became so highly regarded that he was invited to London to work for Charles I, before returning to Utrecht in 1641 just before the English Civil War.

Often paintings in this genre would represent a scene from a classical or biblical story. It’s possible that here van Poelenburgh meant to depict Diana bathing with her nymphs, but none of the objects that usually identify the goddess are present. Instead his allusion to the classical world is more general, relying on the poses adopted by the nudes to remind his audience of Roman statuary. Van Poelenburgh was considered a specialist in painting such figures – so much so that he was drafted in to help other artists by adding them to their landscapes. There’s an example of such a collaboration with the artist Jan Both (who studied with him in Rome) in our collection: A Landscape with the Judgement of Paris.

But there’s a question over how successful van Poelenburgh has been in depicting the figures. On an individual basis, the women are carefully painted. Look at shading of contours and muscles, and subtle changes of skin tone in the three figures in the foreground. But there’s something not quite natural about the way they interact: the poses seem to have been selected for individual effect, rather than a naturalistic grouping. Even more surprising is the woman sitting on a rock on the right-hand side – the one with her arm raised. She is apparently meant to be part of the group bathing in the distance, but she seems as close to us as the central figures. As a result she and the bathers with her look strangely like a group of miniature people.