The composition depicts a partly undressed woman, seated on her bed and putting on a stocking. She faces the viewer with a flirtatious gaze. An arched doorway separates the woman's space from the viewer's space. Steen differentiates the two spaces by the use of symbols that would have been understood by his contemporaries. The arch in the foreground "represents moral probity emphasised by the symbolism of the sunflower (constancy), the grapevines (domestic virtue) and the weeping cherub (chastised profane love)".[1] In contrast, the room beyond the arch is the domain of vanity and profane love, symbolized by a skull, an extinguished candle, and a lute with a broken string.[1] The painting is full of sexual innuendo, some of it based on word play. For instance, the Dutch word for stocking (kous) was a slang term for fornication; the Dutch word for the chamber pot (piespot) below the bed can be combined with kous to form a derogatory word for women – pieskous.[1]
The Rokeby Venus is a painting by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age. Completed between 1647 and 1651, and probably painted during the artist's visit to Italy, the work depicts the goddess Venus in a sensual pose, lying on a bed and looking into a mirror held by the Roman god of physical love, her son Cupid. The painting is in the National Gallery, London.
The Naked Maja or The Nude Maja is an oil on canvas painting made around 1797–1800 by the Spanish artist Francisco de Goya, and is now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. It portrays a nude woman reclining on a bed of pillows, and was probably commissioned by Manuel de Godoy, to hang in his private collection in a separate cabinet reserved for nude paintings. Goya created a pendant of the same woman identically posed, but clothed, known today as La maja vestida, also in the Prado, and usually hung next to La maja desnuda. The subject is identified as a maja or fashionable lower-class Madrid woman, based on her costume in La maja vestida.
The Venus of Urbino is an oil painting by the Italian painter Titian, which seems to have been begun in 1532 or 1534, and was perhaps completed in 1534, but not sold until 1538. It depicts a nude young woman, traditionally identified with the goddess Venus, reclining on a couch or bed in the sumptuous surroundings of a Renaissance palace. It is now in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence.
The Nightmare is a 1781 oil painting by Swiss artist Henry Fuseli. It shows a woman in deep sleep with her arms thrown below her, and with a demonic and ape-like incubus crouched on her chest. The painting's dreamlike and haunting erotic evocation of infatuation and obsession was a huge popular success.
Sacred and Profane Love is an oil painting by Titian, probably painted in 1514, early in his career. The painting is presumed to have been commissioned by Niccolò Aurelio, a secretary to the Venetian Council of Ten, whose coat of arms appears on the sarcophagus or fountain, to celebrate his marriage to a young widow, Laura Bagarotto. It perhaps depicts a figure representing the bride dressed in white, sitting beside Cupid and accompanied by the goddess Venus.
The Gallant Conversation is an oil-on-canvas painting from circa 1654 by Gerard ter Borch. A late 18th century French print of the work is titled The Paternal Admonition, apparently believing it showed a father reprimanding his daughter, but modern art historians see it as a conversation between two prospective lovers, either a discussion of a betrothal or, more likely, a customer propositioning a prostitute in a brothel. There are two versions made by the painter, one at the Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam, and the other at the Gemäldegalerie Berlin.The two paintings are dated to around 1654. The Amsterdam version is 71 cm by 73 cm, with the extra centimeters on the right being taken up by a dog and a door. The dimensions of the Berlin painting is smaller, 70 by 60 cm.
Mariana is an 1851 oil-on-panel painting by John Everett Millais. The image depicts the solitary Mariana from William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, as retold in Tennyson's 1830 poem "Mariana". The painting is regarded as an example of Millais's "precision, attention to detail, and stellar ability as a colorist". It has been held by Tate Britain since 1999.
The Allegory of Faith, also known as Allegory of the Catholic Faith, is a Dutch Golden Age painting by Johannes Vermeer from about 1670–1672. It has been in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since 1931.
Woman with a Mirror is a painting by Titian, dated to c. 1515 and now in the Musée du Louvre, in Paris.
Venus and Musician refers to a series of paintings by the Venetian Renaissance painter Titian.
Woman Bathing 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; one in Antwerp and a more successful but small c 1500 panel in Harvard University's Fogg Museum, which is in poor condition. It is unique in van Eyck's known oeuvre for portraying a nude in secular setting, although there is mention in two 17th-century literary sources of other now lost but equally erotic van Eyck panels.
The Dutch interiors are a series of three paintings painted by Joan Miró in 1928, each inspired by Dutch Golden Age paintings of Dutch interiors. Dutch Interior I is a reinterpretation of the Lute Player by Hendrik Martenszoon Sorgh, Dutch Interior II is a reinterpretation of Children Teaching a Cat to Dance by Jan Steen, and Dutch Interior III is a reinterpretation of the Young woman at her toilet, also by Steen. They belong to a period of Miró which is called "assassination of painting". In the Spring of 1928, during a trip to Belgium and Holland, Miró was impressed by the Dutch masters of the 17th-century. After buying colorful postcards of some paintings he began his reinterpretations. The colors are the hues of the original paintings, but the intensity of the color is purely Miró. Thus, a green-gray gradient wall of Martensz Sorgh becomes a green apple in Miró.
Courtyard with an Arbour (1658–1660) is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Dutch painter Pieter de Hooch; it is now in a private collection. It was sold in 1992 for almost seven million dollars.
Lucretia is a 1666 history painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art. It is an oil painting on canvas that depicts a myth about a woman named Lucretia who lived during the ancient Roman eras. She committed suicide to defend her honor after being raped by an Etruscan king's son. For her self-sacrifice she is known as a heroine to the Romans, who celebrated the feminine ideals of virtue and chastity.
The Lovesick Maiden is a c. 1660 oil-on-canvas genre painting by Jan Steen. It shows a young woman suffering from love-sickness surrounded by her doctor and a maid-servant. It is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Pardo Venus is a painting by the Venetian artist Titian, completed in 1551 and now in the Louvre Museum. It is also known as Jupiter and Antiope, since it seems to show the story of Jupiter and Antiope from Book VI of the Metamorphoses. It is Titian's largest mythological painting, and was the first major mythological painting produced by the artist for Philip II of Spain. It was long kept in the Royal Palace of El Pardo near Madrid, hence its usual name; whether Venus is actually represented is uncertain. It later belonged to the English and French royal collections.
La Toilette, also known as Rousse, is an 1889 painting by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The painting depicts a red-headed woman, stripped to the waist, seated on the floor, facing away from the viewer, just before or just after bathing. Held by public collections in France since 1914, it has been at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris since 1983.
The Oyster Eater or Girl Offering Oysters is a small oil-on-panel painting by Jan Steen dating to c.1658–1660. Since 1936, it has been in the collection of the Mauritshuis in the Hague. It is a genre painting that demonstrates Steen's intricate style and use of domestic settings. It also shows Steen's use of symbolism with oysters to create a theme of earthly lust.
"As the Old Sing, So Pipe the Young", in Dutch, Soo voer gesongen, soo na gepepen, is an oil-on-canvas painting executed c. 1668–1670 by Dutch artist Jan Steen. It is in the collection of the Mauritshuis in The Hague. The painting is a celebratory holiday scene that depicts three generations of a Dutch family and serves as an allegory about parental examples, vice, and influence. This subject was painted thirteen times by Jan Steen and has also been known as The Cat Family, or Jan Steen's Family. Of the many renditions, the Mauritshuis version is considered to be the exemplar of the series. Its dimensions are 133.7 cm × 162.5 cm.
Beware of Luxury is a 1663 oil painting by the Dutch painter Jan Steen, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
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