Bathsheba Bathing

Memling's Bathsheba Bathing from around 1485 in the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart depicts the Old Testament beauty whose bathing was observed by King David from his rooftop — the beginning of an adulterous relationship whose consequences shaped the remainder of David's reign. The nude Bathsheba bathing was one of the few subjects that permitted Flemish painters to depict the female nude within a religious framework, and Memling's treatment rendered the subject with the same devotional precision he brought to sacred subjects — the figure observed with complete attention, the domestic details rendered with Flemish specificity. The work is exceptional in his output for its combination of nude figure painting with biblical narrative.

Memling renders the female nude with his characteristic smooth technique, applying the same porcelain-like flesh tones to the figure that he used in his devotional paintings, set within a carefully detailed domestic interior.