Art talk - babbling about art and artists

First half  of 17th century was the time of great artists and great art. Two of those great ones lived in today’s Netherlands, Rembrandt van Rijn and Jan Lievens. They were competitors but also great friends. No wonder, they shared a lot including hiring same models to sit when painted their masterpieces. Here is a great example. In 1631 Jan Lievens painted “Job” in which Job was abandoned and left to the Devil. The very next year Rembrandt painted “A Jewish Heroine from the Hebrew Bible” depicting probably Judith preparing to seduce and kill Holofernes. And? Well, it seems that the same woman was used as a model in both of the paintings. At that time both artists were already famous in the Amsterdam and for them a model was simply a necessity in order to finish the work, but from the prospective of the woman model, she was probably very happy to get a few guilders for few sittings until both paintings were completed not caring much about her famous employers.                      ( both paintings are part of the permanent collection in National Gallery of Canada)