Anna du Pire as Granida (with detail) by Bartholomeus van der Heist, 1660.In Holland during the 17th

Anna du Pire as Granida (with detail) by Bartholomeus van der Heist, 1660.

In Holland during the 17th century, the fashion among the nobility was to be painted as characters from pastoral plays.

Grandia is the heroine of a platonic love story named for her and rewritten for the stage by Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft in 1605. A princess from Persia, she is rescued by a kindly shepherd after she loses her way during a hunt.

The excuse that the model was not herself but instead the embodiment of a literary fiction allowed for costumes that were otherwise too racy in a society shaped by puritan influences.

The exposed nipple may still have been intolerable for some viewers but van der Heist had another advantage to help sway public opinion: Anna du Pire’s husband approved of the picture. Indeed, he had painted it.