By: Shane Lambert
Original time of publication: September 7th, 2026
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| Jenny Nystrom's 1884 painting The Convalescent |
Should interpretations of art change over the generations? If the goal is to understand what the painter was trying to depict, then I think once that is achieved, the interpretation is stuck for all time. The artist, after all, could only be doing one thing at one time, and once that mystery is resolved, it's resolved forever.
However, what if prevailing attitudes, politics, and belief systems affect the interpretation of art? And what if painters, like a lot of artists, think outside of the proverbial box? That would mean it could take more than prevailing orthodoxy to interpret their works properly.
With that considered, I aim to challenge the conventional interpretation of Jenny Nystrom's 1884 painting "The Convalescent" using a true-crime perspective consistent with my blog's genre. While the depiction may not be of an actual crime, as the painting is a product of human consciousness, it still relates to sociology. In making my interpretation, I depict a murder scene in Jenny Nystrom's The Convalescent as opposed to the conventional interpretation of a caregiving scene.
The Conventional Interpretation
The Convalescent, at first glance, depicts a sick woman and a healthy woman in the same scene. Apparently, there was a wave of paintings that were thematically related to convalescence in the late 1800's. Nowadays, I bet that a lot of people will have to look up what a convalescent is: it is a term that describes someone who is recovering from illness.
Conventionally, Jenny Nystrom's The Convalescent has been interpreted as a sympathetic depiction of such a person, in this case a young woman recovering from illness. The seemingly healthy woman in the image, the one who is standing, has generally been understood as a companion or caregiver. Meanwhile, the reclining figure represents physical frailty, vulnerability, and the uncertain process of recovery.Recently, Mette Bøgh Jensen has proposed that Nyström's representation may relate to contemporary photographic representations of women diagnosed with hysteria at the Salpêtrière hospital in Paris (source). That shows that this 1884 painting is one that has been looked at over the years and remains debated. It caught my attention through random chance as I thought it looked quite odd.
The interpretations generally treat the standing woman as a figure within the convalescent's world of care rather than as an antagonist. I deviate from this perspective. Since, from my research, there is no known surviving statement from Nyström that definitively establishes any interpretation as her intended narrative, the matter remains open to debate. Artists can be secretive about what they represent.
Murder: A Darker Interpretation of The Convalescent
Do I see a murder scene in Nystrom's The Convalescent because I write about true crime? That's possible. Anyone can develop tunnel vision. After researching and writing about hundreds of missing person's cases, related serial killers, and unsolved mysteries of that sort, I could be seeing a painting through a distorted lens.
But the more important question is: do I incorrectly see a murder scene because I write about true crime?
When it comes to such biases, I don't try to solve the problem by claiming omniscience. Merely, I will state that anyone who challenges an opinion based on a perception of bias has to look in the mirror. The same standard of bias one applies to others also applies to the person in the mirror.
One massive bias that could have affected the interpretation of The Convalescent is religion. The year 1884, when this painting was made, was a different time for pressures related to being religious and upholding religious viewpoints. In particular, the woman's eyeballs looking toward the ceiling have been described as a communication to the almighty; in fact, they could reflect simple agony.
But let's start with the painting as a depiction of a crime scene.
The armchair itself is an important part of the painting's setting. I think, when interpreting paintings, you need to take an "Expanded Universe" perspective and pretend, for a moment, that the painting is a moment in time. Yes, from that point of view, the sick woman is, in fact, recovering from her illness because she is not in bed anymore. Someone who is sick and progressing to health, as common knowledge, would have spent plenty of time in bed previously. The armchair setting is therefore foundational in establishing that the sick girl is entering the recovery stage because it shows she is not entirely devoid of strength.
But the image, as a murder scene, requires more than recovery. It requires the opposite, in fact, -- it requires a relapse that is conjoined with someone causing that relapse on purpose.
The convalescent has dropped her book on the floor. That is important because it speaks to a sudden relapse after a time when she was engaged in reading, another activity that requires just a little more energy than lying in bed. But what caused her to drop her book remains a question.
There are also some orange peels on the floor. Importantly, they do not appear to be from the orange on the table, which is depicted as unpeeled. The peels could be from the opposite side of the orange, which is not facing the viewer. Yet, the orange peels are curled and appear a little dried out. This suggests the convalescent girl has been using the armchair daily during her recovery. The peels on the floor are therefore most likely from yesterday. The young woman in the armchair appears to have been on a steady recovery, with a daily routine taking her out of bed now.
There are two containers on the table as well. One is a flask with a cloth, the latter of which might be used to create a seal. The liquid inside has yellowish-brown tinges, presumably something therapeutic. The other container is a cup with a spoon and clear liquid.
The two containers have liquids that are different colors, so the container's liquid has not been poured into the cup, at least not without another agent present to produce the clarity. The cup has a spoon in it, suggesting that mixing has taken place. I think the spoon, the orange peels, and the book are important elements in the painting, which reflect the painter's conscious insertion for dramatic purposes. Importantly, the cup with the spoon is out of the reach of the convalescent, placing it as an item that should be associated with the standing girl.
This girl has strange eyes and eyebrows, which do not reflect compassion. They are dull eyes and fairly neutral. It's at this point that opinion, and perhaps bias, enters the interpretation. In my opinion, her eyebrows indicate intrigue as she looks down at the suffering girl in the armchair, who has just dropped her book. The slight intrigue in her eyebrows could be the Mark David Chapman moment, John Lennon's murderer, who looked at the musician and said to himself, "The bullets are working."
The standing girl is also dressed in black. Black is an overt symbolic color in artwork. It means "I'll spell it out for you -- we're dealing with death."
Less overt, in my opinion, is the red necklace, but I think it still signifies danger. Red on black is commonly associated with the devil. Thus, the artist has associated colors with the standing girl that do not suggest innocence in any way. That bouquet of flowers may be how she won trust to enter the room, ostensibly to comfort the convalescent girl.
Meanwhile, the dead flowers on the chest of drawers to the left have been presented as an overt symbol of death. That being the case, does that not contradict an interpretation of recovery?
The sick girl herself appears to be going through some kind of paralysis. Her fingers look rigid and her arms stiff as well. Her look to the sky could be reflective of paralysis as well. Meanwhile, that she is looking away from her 'caregiver' suggests that the sick girl, in her final moment of willpower, realized that she'd been poisoned and turned away from her before the elixir took over her body.
We know a lot more about crime in modern times than they did in 1884. We know caregivers, broadly construed to include nurses, doctors, or in-home helpers, do commit murder. Some of the worst serial killers are health-care professionals. Harold Shipman was a general practitioner who killed numerous of his patients.
We also know that children do kill sometimes. The case of Mary Bell is one of the better-known examples, where it's conclusive that a child committed murder. I read a study a few years back that suggested that a lot of child murderers may have brains that are not functioning well, sometimes due to trauma. It's not a well-researched topic, to my knowledge, but a connection between brain injuries and child murder made sense to me because child killers are so enigmatic. I cannot understand it only as related to substantial trauma, whether physical or mental.
I guess it's clear where I'm going now. My interpretation of The Convalescent is that the standing girl has suffered through trauma that has turned her into a deviant. She picked some flowers and visited the convalescent, who had progressed from her bedridden state to an armchair and was partaking in daily reading activity. After drinking a poison that she was given, she dropped her book to the floor, turned away from her stalker with her last moment of willpower, and stiffened up while the standing girl looked on with approval.
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| Jenny Nystrom's 1884 painting The Convalescent |
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