Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem - A monk and a nun

• Title: A monk and a nun
• Artist: Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem (1562-1638)
• Date: 1590
• Medium: Oil on canvas
• Dimensions: 116 × 103 cm

In the painting "A monk and a nun", Cornelis van Haarlem depicts a monk and a nun in an awckward scene with much sexual inuendo. According to a legend a nun was accused of having become pregnant. To verify this a monk had to squeeze her breast and if it produced milk she was guilty. But instead of milk she produced wine — the reason for the wine glass on the table. Instead of proving the nun’s guilt the miracle was witness to her faith.

Yet the legend may not have been the real subject of the painting as pictures of amorous monks and nuns were a popular genre in the late 16th century, probably because the Protestant crowd was in demand of representations of the immorality of the Catholic Church and its ordained staff.