◧ Medium: Oil painting on canvas
◧ Painting Size: 125 × 101 cm (49" × 40")
◧ Museum: Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia
◧ Country of Stamp Issue: Russia
◧ Date of Issue: Dec 12, 1973
◧ Face Value: 50 Kopecks
◧ Issued as Hermitage Museum Arts series
[Flora] is a life-size quarter-length work, which was painted in Amsterdam in 1634, the year when Rembrant married Saskia van Uylenburgh. Rembrandt was knowned to make several paintings of his wife, Saskia, in the characters from ancient Greek and Roman myth and this depicts Saskia as Flora, Roman goddess of spring and flowering plants. After Saskia's death in 1642, later around 1654, Rembrandt made another "Flora" painting.
The subject of the second [Flora] is open to debate. Some art critics argue this was modeled after Hendrickje Stoffels althought facial features on the painting resemble Saskia. She was a longtime partner of Rembrandt and his model. Rembrandt couldn't marry her because of the financial settlement from the late Saskia, but they lived together until Hendrickje's death in 1663. Others argue, including Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York where the second painting currently displayed, the painting's muse was Saskia although it was painted in 1654, some twelve years later after her death. Here is an excerpt of description from Metropolitan Museum of Art.
"...and the goddess may be based in part on a portrait of the artist’s deceased wife, Saskia, who had been the muse and inspiration for many of his paintings."
Here is second [Flora] at Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
