A Medical Practitioner Taking a Woman's Pulse

A Medical Practitioner Taking a Woman's Pulse, in the Wellcome Collection, is one of multiple versions of the pulse-taking consultation in the collection, assembled as documentation of Steen's varied treatments of the theme. This version with a generic 'woman' rather than specifically 'young woman' or 'lovesick girl' patient may represent a somewhat different register: perhaps a mature patient with a genuine ailment, or another variation of the lovesick type. Steen's ability to generate multiple compositionally and contextually varied treatments of the same situation across a career demonstrates both his commercial responsiveness to a popular subject type and his genuine inventiveness in finding new angles on established material. The Wellcome Collection's comprehensive holdings provide an unparalleled opportunity to examine this range.

Each version of the pulse-taking subject required Steen to balance repetition with variation: the same basic gesture, different setting, different cast, different lighting. His handling maintained high quality across the series through sustained attention to individual figure characterisation rather than formulaic repetition.