A Physician Taking a Woman's Pulse

A Physician Taking a Woman's Pulse, in the Wellcome Collection, belongs to Steen's medical consultation series with a less specifically 'lovesick' framing than some of his related works — the subject here being a woman whose age or context may suggest a different kind of illness than the romantic longing of his younger female patients. Steen's medical scenes ranged across the full spectrum from the clearly comic lovesick maiden to more ambiguous consultations in which the patient's condition was genuinely uncertain. The range of his Wellcome Collection works suggests that the collection prioritised comprehensiveness over variety, assembling multiple versions of the same subject to document the range of his treatments. The undated work is consistent with Steen's approach across his mature career.

Steen handled the physician-patient physical relationship with consistent attention to the social dynamics encoded in their postures and proximity. The interior setting provided the warm domestic context appropriate to a home visit. The painting's degree of finish — whether a carefully worked final painting or a more quickly handled composition — affected the precision of facial and textile rendering.