A Woman at her Toilet

A Woman at her Toilet is an oil-on-panel painting by Jan Steen painted in 1663. Is now a part of the Royal Collection, having been acquired by King George IV in 1821. The painting is housed in Buckingham Palace.

The composition depicts a partly undressed woman, seated on her bed and putting on a stocking. She faces the viewer with a flirtatious gaze. An arched doorway intervenes between the woman and the viewer, bisecting the line of sight into two symbolically charged realms. Thus split, the two resulting spaces are populated with symbols familiar to Steen's contemporaries. The arch in the foreground "represents moral probity emphasised by the symbolism of the sunflower (constancy), the grapevines (domestic virtue) and the weeping cherub (chastised profane love)". In contrast, the room beyond the arch is the domain of vanity and profane love, symbolized by a skull, an extinguished candl…

摘自英文维基百科「Woman at her Toilet (Steen)」（CC BY-SA 4.0），暂时没有中文条目。