Allegorical Figure of a Woman with a Dog

Herman van der Mijn

1719

oil on panel

Rijksmuseum

A woman with bare breasts and a green draped cloth sits on rocks next to a dog. She holds a shell in her right hand. Born in Amsterdam, Van der Mijn found his way via Düsseldorf and Antwerp to London, where he built a successful career with his finely painted portraits and scenes. The latter almost always feature a female figure in a landscape, and sometimes include a reference to a story from the Bible or Classical mythology. Whether this woman is a religious or a mythological figure is not known.