Detail of Bathsheba at her Bath by Chiari in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 2022

Title: Bathsheba at Her Bath

Artist: Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari (Italian, Lucca or Rome 1654–1727 Rome)

Date: ca. 1700

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 53 1/2 x 38 1/2 in. (135.9 x 97.8 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Gift of Mario Modestini, 1993

Accession Number: 1993.401

Bathsheba is shown at her toilet, tended by two servants, while King David gazes at her from the palace balcony. David later sent Bathsheba’s husband Uriah into battle to be killed so that he might marry her. This painting, among Chiari’s finest, is based on a work painted by his teacher Carlo Maratti for marchese Niccolò Maria Pallavicini. Chiari introduced a number of motifs, such as the gesture of Bathsheba arranging her hair that subtly redirect Maratti’s more robust style towards the Rococo sensibilities later embodied by French artists, including Natoire and Boucher.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435894