![]() 7 In Steen’s picture, the doctor glances knowingly to the maid holding a bottle of urine, an indication that he has come to a diagnosis that lovesickness is the cause of her illness. A good example is Steen’s The Physician’s Visit, ca. Painters of this theme adopted a more suggestive and subtle manner than the aforementioned illustrators to narrate the story of lovesickness. Death, also carrying a bow, stands in the background, an indication that the woman’s condition is fatal ( fig 1). The arrow belongs to the cupid who stands beside her bed. In a small print from ’s Werelts begin, midden, eynde besloten in den trou-ringh, met den proef-steen van den selven by Jacob Cats, a “sick” woman named Rhodopis lies in her bed with an arrow through her heart. ![]() 5 In fact, early examples of the doctor’s visit in emblemata and book illustrations explicitly reveal the cause of the patient’s illness. The doctor typically takes her pulse (a woman’s accelerating pulse rate could betray her secret feeling of love) or tests her urine, the color, texture, and smell of which could reveal the patient’s mental condition, including a state of melancholy caused by lovesickness. 4 In paintings by each of these masters the female patient, looking pale and weak, is shown suffering from a malady for which there is no cure: lovesickness. Toorenvliet, who was born in Leiden, would have known their works. The doctor’s visit was a particularly popular subject among Leiden painters in the 1650s and 1660s, among them Gerrit Dou (1613–75), Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635–81), and Jan Steen (1626–79). For these thematic and stylistic reasons it seems probable that Toorenvliet painted this scene in the mid- to late 1660s, probably around 1666 or 1667, as two of his other doctor’s visit scenes are dated 1666. ![]() 2 Also representative of his early paintings is the smooth, enamel-like finish and delicate rendering of the minute details that animate his scene. As is typical of the artist’s early paintings, Toorenvliet has situated these brightly-lit figures against a dark background and enlivened his scene with bright reds and whites. He presumably brought the flask in the cylinder-shaped basket held by the handsomely dressed boy beside him. A gray-bearded doctor takes the woman’s pulse while examining a flask containing her urine. The patient, a weak, elegantly dressed woman lying in bed, exchanges meaningful gazes with the maid, who tenderly cares for her. 1 The setting is a room embellished with a beautifully coffered ceiling, a canopy bed with a fringed curtain, a table covered with a luxurious tapestry, and a chair upholstered with red fabric. This splendid picture is one of the finest of a series of “doctor’s visit” scenes that Jacob Toorenvliet painted in the 1660s.
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