Caspar Netscher

(Heidelberg(?) c. 1636/39 - 1684 The Hague)

A lady washing her hands

Panel, 49.3 x 40.3 cm

Signed and dated at lower left, on the chair: C. Netscher 1657

Netscher painted A lady washing her hands in 1657, when he was still working in Ter Borch's studio. Hand washing was a popular motif in seventeenth-century art and literature and was often used as a metaphor for purity and innocence - a notion with Christian origins.