The support is a single horizontally grained oak plank bevelled on all sides. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1606. The panel could have been ready for use by 1615, but a date in or after 1625 is more likely. The paint layers were applied over a thin, smooth white ground with fine, barely visible, brushstrokes. The paint layers are translucent in the dark browns of the rocks on the left, and in the foreground.

Good. There is slight discolouring in the foliage of the trees. A scratch caused by vandalism similar to SK-A-310 runs over the central figure; its retouching has discoloured.

…; sale, Jaques Meyers (?-1721), Rotterdam, sold on the deceased’s premises (auction house not known), 9 September 1722 sqq., no. 141 (‘Een dito [landsch:] met badende vrouwtjes, dito grote [h: 51/2d., b: 61/2d.] [14.4 x 16.9 cm]’), fl. 35, to Hendrik van Heteren (1672-1749), The Hague;¹¹Jonckheere 2005, p. 291, nos. 140-41. his collection;²²Moes/Van Biema 1909, p. 192. his son, Adriaan Leonard van Heteren (1724-1800), The Hague (‘Eenige Vrouwtjes die zig baden […], h. 5 en een half d., br. 6 en drie vierde d. [14.4 x 17.7 cm] P.’);³³Coll. cat. Van Heteren 1752, p. 458. his third cousin and godson, Adriaan Leonard van Heteren Gevers (1794-1866), Rotterdam, ? (‘Représentant des hommes et des femmes occupés à se baigner’), or ? (‘Pendant. Même sujet’);⁴⁴Coll. cat. Gevers 1808, p. 149, no. 83 or 84. from whom, fl. 100,000, with 136 other paintings en bloc (known as the ‘Kabinet van Heteren Gevers’), to the museum, by decree of Louis Napoleon, King of Holland, and through the mediation of his father Dirk Cornelis Gevers (1763-1839), 8 June 1809⁵⁵Verroen 1985, p. 17, notes 2, 3.

Object number: SK-A-311

After his return to Utrecht, bathing nymphs in Italianate landscapes appear to have been Van Poelenburch’s favourite subject for the rest of his career. Although of small size, he structured the composition of the present picture in the same way as he did many of his larger paintings of bathing figures.¹⁰¹⁰For example Landscape with Classical Ruins and Women Bathers, London, The National Gallery (coll. cat. London 1991, I, p. 310, II, pl. 270; not included in Sluijter-Seijffert 1984, who considers it a work by Jan van Haansbergen; note RMA) and Landscape with the Discovery of Callisto’s Pregnancy, Frankfurt, Städelsches Kunstinstitut (coll. cat. Frankfurt 2004, pp. 357-63; Sluijter-Seijffert 1984, p. 59, note 7; here considered autograph and to be included in Sluijter-Seijffert’s forthcoming monograph on Van Poelenburch). The foreground shows river banks parallel to the picture plane with partially draped seated or standing figures. In the middleground is a river where nymphs are bathing and climbing onto the bank in the foreground, with an atmospheric hilly landscape receding into the background.

That Van Poelenburch’s figures are often formulaic is illustrated by the female figure with towel covering her breasts climbing onto the riverbank in the present picture, who also appears as Callisto trying to disguise her pregnancy in a panel of a similar small size in Frankfurt.¹¹¹¹Städelsches Kunstinstitut; coll. cat. Frankfurt 2004, pp. 357-63. The standing female figure addressing her seated companion, while pointing to the other bathers, also appears in the Bathing Nymphs by a Classical Ruin, formerly in Dresden.¹²¹²Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Gemäldegalerie; not included in Sluijter-Seijffert 1984.

In her monograph on the artist Sluijter-Seijffert suggests a date for the Bathing Girls and the Bathing Men (SK-A-310) towards the end of Van Poelenburch’s career.¹³¹³Sluijter-Seijffert points out that the seated female figure seen from behind is comparable (in reverse) to Rembrandt’s etching, The Woman with the Arrow, dated 1661, thus establishing a terminus post quem; for an illustration see TIB L (suppl.), 1993, p. 162, no. 202. However, this similarity is too generic, as the positions of the head, torso and arms differ slightly, while that of the legs is noticeably different. Indeed the obvious similarities to the The Expulsion from Paradise (SK-A-312) in the treatment of the landscape and the warm yellow light suggest that both small panels also date from Van Poelenburch’s mature period. However, her argument that both little paintings are lacking in detail and refinement is difficult to sustain. In comparison to The Expulsion and the probably earlier Satyrs Peeping at Nymphs (SK-A-313) it has a similar amount of detail in, for example, the foliage and plants in the foreground. Even the figures in the distance in the small Bathing Girls, although barely visible to the naked eye, are painted with a few accurate brushstrokes.

For the traditional pairing of this picture with the Bathing Men see the entry on SK-A-310.

Taco Dibbits, 2007

See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements

This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no.
243.

Sluijter-Seijffert 1984, pp. 100, 236, no. 107; Verroen 1985, p. 48, no. 113

1809, pp. 54-55, no. 239 or 240; 1843, p. 46, no. 244 (‘in good condition’); 1853, p. 22, no. 216 (fl. 400) or 217 (fl. 1,000); 1858, p. 108, no. 239; 1880, p. 244, no. 272; 1887, p. 133, no. 1119; 1903, p. 211, no. 1892; 1934, p. 225, no. 1892; 1960, p. 243, no. 1892; 1976, pp. 448-49, no. A 311; 2007, no. 243

T. Dibbits, 2007, 'Cornelis van Poelenburch, Bathing Girls, after c. 1646', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20026052