Landscape with Bathing Nudes

A sense of uninhibited freedom pervades the scene as a group of women bathe, lounge, and socialize in an area below a rocky hillside. Drying herself, the woman in the center of the painting turns toward her voluptuous nude companion lying in the foreground. Cornelius van Poelenburgh softly modeled the figures, evoking the texture of tender flesh. The landscape captures the atmospheric qualities of the Italian countryside and deliberately calls to mind an idyllic mythological land filled with languid nymphs. Van Poelenburgh was best known for cabinet-size paintings, small easel paintings intended to be viewed at close range. Like this one, many were painted on copper and represented ruins, shepherds, peasants, travelers, and an occasional mythological or religious scene.