Artifact World Gallery
Get the iOS app

Paintings of physicians by Jan Steen by Jan Steen

Jan Steen · 1660-01-01

View the artwork: Paintings of physicians by Jan Steen →

The Lovesick Maiden, painted by Jan Steen around 1660, is a comedy hiding in a sickroom. A solemn physician takes the pulse of a listless young woman while the true diagnosis hangs on the wall directly above his head: a small painting of Cupid.

The clue is in the color. Her yellow-green satin skirt was called jonquil, the period shorthand for 'green sickness', what 17th-century medicine named lovesickness. The unmade canopy bed behind her, the loose white headdress she has not bothered to pin up properly, and the maid who already seems to understand the truth all broadcast what the doctor misses.

Steen painted this in Leiden, home to the era's most prestigious medical school. The satire would have landed instantly with an audience who knew how useless a pulse-check was against a broken heart. Like much of his work, it punctures the pretensions of professionals, the doctor's dark coat and furrowed brow perform authority while the real answer is hiding in decor.

Next time you feel unseen, at least your doctor isn't staring at your wrist while a winged toddler with a bow tells the whole story.

#arthistory #jansteen #dutchgoldenage

Details

Her downcast, melancholic gaze is the emotional fulcrum , she looks inward while the physician looks only at her wrist, dramatizing the gap between diagnosis and truth
Her downcast, melancholic gaze is the emotional fulcrum , she looks inward while the physician looks only at her wrist, dramatizing the gap between diagnosis and truth
Yellow-green (jonquil) was the color of 'green sickness' (chlorosis), the period diagnosis for lovesick young women , the dress color is a medical clue, not mere fashion
Yellow-green (jonquil) was the color of 'green sickness' (chlorosis), the period diagnosis for lovesick young women , the dress color is a medical clue, not mere fashion
The informal, loosely pinned cloth signals she has not dressed properly for the day , a visual shorthand for debilitation and domestic disorder
The informal, loosely pinned cloth signals she has not dressed properly for the day , a visual shorthand for debilitation and domestic disorder
The dark-coated doctor is a stock comic type in Steen , earnest, oblivious, and entirely wrong; his posture of professional authority undermines itself
The dark-coated doctor is a stock comic type in Steen , earnest, oblivious, and entirely wrong; his posture of professional authority undermines itself
Her expression and posture suggest she understands what the physician does not; Steen habitually uses background figures as a moral chorus commenting on the foreground
Her expression and posture suggest she understands what the physician does not; Steen habitually uses background figures as a moral chorus commenting on the foreground
Transcript

A doctor makes a house call, perfectly serious. He checks her pulse with the gravity of a scholar. But the 17th century had a word for girls like her. They called it 'green sickness.' A disease of young women in love. Her color tells you. Her bed tells you. The doctor sees none of it. Jan Steen added the real diagnosis in plain sight.