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The Sick Woman
Jan Steencirca 1660
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Rotterdam, Netherlands
The theme of lovesickness was extremely popular in both painting and the theatre in the seventeenth century. Suppressed desire led to a vague syndrome known as ‘hysteria’. The satire is played out with the arrival of the doctor, in this case an old spinster with an enema syringe.
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Details
- Title: The Sick Woman
- Creator Lifespan: 1626 - 1679
- Creator Nationality: Dutch
- Creator Gender: Male
- Creator Death Place: Leiden, the Netherlands
- Creator Birth Place: Leiden, the Netherlands
- Date Created: circa 1660
- Physical Dimensions: w215 x h265 cm (Without frame)
- Painter: Jan Havicksz. Steen
- Original Title: Het zieke vrouwtje
- Artist Information: Jan Steen is known for his humorous depictions of the everyday life of farmers and the middle-classes in 17th-century Holland. He worked in The Hague, Haarlem, Delft, where he also rented a brewery, and Leiden where he ran an inn. His genre paintings as a rule had a strong moralistic meaning, some of them even examples of Old Dutch proverbs. People still talk of a 'household by Jan Steen' to refer to a messy and exuberant way of house-keeping.
- Type: Painting
- Rights: Lent by Stichting Willem van der Vorm 1972, http://collectie.boijmans.nl/en/disclaimer/
- External Link: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
- Medium: Oil on panel
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