Why it matters
Bathsheba sits naked, holding King David's letter, lost in thought about his summons. Kenneth Clark called it 'Rembrandt's greatest painting of the nude', and its insight into her moral dilemma has been described as one of the great achievements of Western painting.
Did you know?
- It was painted in 1654.
- Earlier artists usually showed her bathing outdoors with maids.
- It came to the Louvre in 1869 as one of 583 works donated by Louis La Caze.
Based on the Wikipedia article Bathsheba at Her Bath (Rembrandt) (CC BY-SA 4.0).
