Bathsheba

The young naked woman attracts attention. When looking at her, we see what, according to the Bible, was the prelude to adultery with fatal consequences: King David, inflamed with lust, had Bathsheba brought to him and sent her cuckolded husband into battle, where he fell. The artist has hidden the secondary scenes necessary for understanding the subject — like in a hidden object picture — and set the action in a courtly palace and garden. Thus, in the style of Mannerism, he created a narrative painting, bursting with sensory stimuli and symbolic allusions.