Portrait of a Young Girl Standing near a Fountain

Objects or certain motifs in seventeenth-century Dutch paintings were often endowed with a dual function. They serve as perceptible material things, while simultaneously doing something entirely different, namely giving expression to and idea, an intention, a moral, or a condition. In the present portrait, the water from a fountain that sprays or drips on a lady’s extended hand must be understood not only as water but also as a metaphor of the purity of the hand’s owner.