In the year 1654, a young and flagrantly pregnant woman named Hendrickje Stoffels was juged and found guilty by the council of the Reformed Church in Amsterdam. She confessed to "having fornicated with the painter Rembrandt, and admitted to sharing his bed without being married, "like a whore," or in a more literal translation, "committing whoredom."
The counsil punished her by obliging her to penance and by permanently excluding her from the table of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Rembrandt was not found guilty, perhaps because the jury had in mind the episode of Eve and the apple. But the scandal caused the price of his work to tumble and he had to declare bankruptcy.
Sist sett
