|
''Woman Bathing'' (or ''Woman at Her Toilet''; sometimes, perhaps fancifully, known as ''Bathsheba at Her Toilet'' or ''Judith Beautifying Herself'') is a lost panel painting by the Early Netherlandish artist Jan van Eyck. The work is today known through two copies which diverge in important aspects;〔Seidel, 38〕 one in Antwerp and a more successful but small c 1500 panel in Harvard University's Fogg Museum, which is in poor condition.〔Schabacker; Jones, 56〕 It is unique in van Eyck's known oeuvre for portraying a nude in secular setting,〔Harbison, 89〕 although there is mention in two 17th-century literary sources of other now lost but equally erotic van Eyck panels.〔Schabacker; Jones, 59〕 The attribution of either panel to an original by van Eyck is usually not contested; while it may be doubted whether either copy was completed until one or two generations after his early death c. 1441, it is accepted that neither is a forgery or wishful thinking. Art historians broadly consider it likely that both were copied from a single source, that is, one is not a copy of the other, and that both originate from roughly the same period.〔 Van Eyck's original was atypically daring and unusually erotic for a painting of the 1420s – early 1430s when it was presumably completed. Apart from its own qualities, it is interesting to art historians due to the many similarities of the Harvard panel to his to famous 1434 London ''Arnolfini Portrait''. Until the emergence of the Fogg copy around 1969, it was known mostly through its appearance in Willem van Haecht's expansive 1628 painting ''The Gallery of Cornelis van der Geest'', a view of a collector's gallery which contains many other identifiable old masters. Art historians have sought in vain to attach to either a biblical or classical source; the rapes of Bathsheba or Susanna have been suggested, although Judith is sometimes seen a more likely source, but the clues apply only to the Antwerp panel,〔Schabacker; Jones, 65〕 traditionally known as "Judith Beautifying Herself". ==Description== It shows a nude woman taking a sponge bath in an interior setting accompanied by a maid in a red gown. The woman preserves her modesty with a wash cloth held in her left hand as she reaches with her right towards a basin placed on a side-table. A convex mirror hangs from a central bar in the shuttered window above the basin, and shows the reflection of both figures.〔Bohn, Saslow, 35〕 In the tradition of such scenes, the mirror symbolises virtue and purity, while the dog in the lower center at the woman's feet – barely visible in the Fogg panel due to loss of paint, but more distinguishable in van der Geest's work – represents her fidelity.〔Schabacker; Jones, 66〕 Her bedchamber is richly detailed; there is a wooden bed to the right, a tall folding chair against the back wall, and wooden beams running across the ceiling. An orange rests on the windowsill and there are discarded pattens on the floor in the lower left corner.〔Ridderbos et al, 68〕 Two other possible works by van Eyck of this style are known from descriptions only. In 1456, the Italian humanist Bartolomeo Facio described a panel in the collection of Ottaviano della Carda, a nephew of Federico da Montefeltro. In the panel, sometimes known as ''Bathing Woman'', the woman is attended by an older clothed maid as she emerges from her bath in a veil of fine linen which leaves only her head and breasts exposed. Facio's description includes details of a dog, a burning lamp similar to the one in the ''Arnolfini Portrait'',〔Campbell, 200〕 and a distant landscape visible through an open window. Facio mentions the innovative use of a mirror, which in the work is full length and reflects the entire back of the woman's body.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Woman Bathing (van Eyck)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|