Dutch Art (by publication date)

In the Dutch Republic in the Baroque era, two aesthetic formal modes, theater and drama, were dynamically related to two political concepts, event and moment. The Dutch version of the Baroque is characterized by a fascination with this world regarded as one possibility out of a plurality of potential worlds. It is this fascination that explains the coincidence in the Dutch Republic, strange at first sight, of Baroque exuberance, irregularity, paradox and vertigo with scientific rigor, regularity, mathematical logic, and rational distance. In giving a new historical perspective on the Baroque as a specifically Dutch republican one, this study also offers a new and systematic approach to the interactions among the notions of theatricality, dramatization, moment and event.

Jan Lievens (1607–1674), Rembrandt's boyhood friend, who embarked on an artistic career even earlier than his companion, once again is as highly regarded as during his lifetime, thanks to numerous recent publications and several exhibitions. The present monograph and catalogue raisonné discuss and analyze for the first time the extensive output of his early Leiden years: his paintings, drawings and etchings from 1623 to 1632. Besides the book's comprehensiveness and consideration of the artist's work in the context of his Netherlandish contemporaries from Haarlem, Utrecht and Antwerp, special emphasis is placed on establishing the chronology of his œuvre. Only a solid foundation such as this would make it possible to determine more precisely than before Lievens's much discussed relationship to Rembrandt. What transpired was a most lively give and take between two young artists intensely searching for new ways of artistic expression whose later development after their respective move from Leiden took very different paths. Consequently, the careful examination of Lievens's early œuvre sheds new light on Rembrandt's Leiden work.

The seventeenth century is often known as the Dutch Golden Age, not only because of the great wealth the country amassed but also because of the impressive cultural flowering that took place during this period. The art of painting in particular reached a high point, with Rembrandt, Vermeer, van Ruisdael, Jan Steen, and Van de Velde, among others. Many highly talented artists created masterpieces that still evoke our admiration more than four centuries later; their paintings are the jewels in the collections of museums all over the world. This book includes both well-known and lesser- known painters who were prominent during this period, and is an excellent visual resource.

Dulwich Picture Gallery in London holds one of the most remarkable permanent collections of Dutch and Flemish art in the world. It contains key paintings by some of the most renowned artists of the period including Rembrandt van Rijn, Anthony van Dyck's, Peter Paul Rubens, Jacob van Ruisdael, Aelbert Cuyp, Gerrit Dou and Meindart Hobbema. This major new volume is the first time this remarkable collection has been presented in a comprehensive publication. It brings to light new technical analysis, conservation work, provenance and historical significance, combined with rigorous authorship by leading art historians, the late Michiel Jonker and Ellinoor Bergvelt.

Based on new research, Rembrandt's Naked Truth features seventeenth-century nude studies that have never before been brought together in such large numbers in The Rembrandt House Museum in The Hague. It will be the first time that Rembrandt's frank approach to drawing nudes will be examined in depth and brought to the notice of a wide audience. In the seventeenth century Rembrandt and his pupils followed the new trend of drawing from models, but Rembrandt's approach differed from his contemporaries'. His uncompromising realism was criticised—he presented reality and so did not conform to the accepted ideal of beauty at that time. When Rembrandt and his pupils drew nude models they talked about art, beauty and transience—subjects that were as sensitive in those days as they are now.

Accompanying the first ever exhibition devoted to the Dutch painter and draughtsman Adriaen van de Velde (1636–1672), this is also the first monograph on the artist—one of the finest of the Dutch Golden Age. The Art Newspaper has already billed the exhibition as one of their top picks of 2016.

A Dutch Italianate, Adriaen Van de Velde represents a point of artistic cross-communication
across borders, fusing agricultural landscapes in Holland with mythological Arcadian scenes in Italian settings. He died at the early age of 35, and yet he produced a great number of masterpieces that earned him tremendous posthumous fame in the 18th and 19th centuries, when he was one of the most sought-after names among collectors in Germany, France and
England. Compared to Mozart's chamber music by the renowned art historian Wolfgang Stechow (1896–1974), Van de Velde's works are delicate and carefully composed and demonstrate his mastery of lighting effects as well as the human figure.

His father Willem van de Velde the Elder and brother of the Younger were both marine painters, who in the winter of 1672–73 moved from Leiden to England to work in the service of King Charles II. Adriaen, by contrast, almost certainly never traveled outside his native country and chose to paint landscapes rather than seascapes. His meadows, Italianate views, beaches, dunes, forests, winter scenes and portraits in landscape settings and are among the very best that the Dutch Golden Age has produced. Moreover, the artist's drawings are
widely considered to be a high point in 17th-century Dutch draughtsmanship. Yet despite his fame in previous centuries and the exquisite quality of his work, there has never been an exhibition devoted to the artist.

As well as bringing together 60 of his finest works, the publication will reunite the paintings with their preparatory studies in seductive red chalk or pen and ink for the first time, making it possible to follow very precisely the various phases in the artist's creative process—perhaps more so than is possible for any other Dutch artist of the period. The publication will therefore offer not only a survey of the artist's oeuvre but also a rare glimpse of a seventeenth-century Dutch landscape painter at work, from conception to completion.

For seventeenth-century connoisseurs, the beauty of a painting was not nearly as important as the passions that could be seen in it; these were the "soul" of the work. Fear, sadness, surprise, anger, lust and love―the full range of human emotional life can be found in works by painters such as Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Jan Steen, Maerten van Heemskerck and Cornelis van Haarlem, who were required by patrons and viewers to convincingly depict human feelings in their scenes. In Emotions, published to accompany an exhibition at the Frans Hals Museum, art historian Gary Schwartz examines this under-explored preoccupation in Dutch Golden Age art through a selection of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century history paintings, genre scenes and portraits.

Dutch painters in the seventeenth century frequently turned their brushes on subjects from the Bible or mythology. Such subjects, bringing with them whole stories with which patrons and art lovers were intimately familiar, were perfect for the dramatic designs and vibrant play of color and shadow that were these painters' stock in trade.

This book presents the work of forty-one Dutch artists who handled Biblical and mythological stories in the period, including Rembrandt. Arranged chronologically, and copiously illustrated with full-color images of the paintings in question, the book shows how each of these paintings works with—or sometimes against—the conventions of the story it is telling, making use of the viewer's knowledge of the subject and themes and finding ways to bring the familiar arrestingly to life. Lyckle de Vries sets each artist's work in context of his career and influences—including influences from Flemish and Italian painters—and helps readers understand what the goals and intentions were as each artist set out on a painting.

A beautiful produced volume, Stories in Gilded Frames offers a new way of looking at one of the most enduringly popular periods in art history.

Dutch genre paintings of the period between 1680 and 1750 have historically been cast as uninspired repetitions of art from the mid-seventeenth-century Dutch Golden Age. In Confronting the Golden Age, Junko Aono reconsiders these oft-dismissed paintings, repositioning them as dynamic works that played an instrumental role in the canonization of the art of the Golden Age.

Drawing on archival documents, sales catalogs, and other texts, Aono closely analyzes a range of genre paintings—many of them handsomely reproduced in this volume. In the process, she deepens our understanding of these works and reveals how they illuminate the relationships among painters, collectors and the dominant artistic currents of the time.

The National Gallery, London, is home to a world-renowned collection of Dutch paintings that includes masterpieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, Cuyp and Ruisdael, among many others. Still lifes painted with painstaking attention to detail, sublime landscapes, vividly human portraits, and intimate interiors: these beloved paintings tell the story of the Dutch Golden Age, when art, science and trade thrived. Now the National Gallery's popular 2007 guide to the collection has been revised, featuring an elegant new design and an extended introduction that examines why painting flourished in the 17th-century Dutch Republic, and why it is so enduringly popular today. Striking image details enhance the book and updated, informative texts accompany each work of art. Accessible and illuminating, this guide is essential reading for anyone with an interest in Dutch painting.

In his day, Rembrandt was better known as an etcher than as a painter. Looking at Rembrandt's prints requires a little time and patience from the viewer, but the rewards are enormous. Rembrandt moved expertly between genres, demonstrating his ingenuity, insight into human emotion and mastery of the etching medium in every image. The compositions are beautifully balanced despite a wealth of narrative detail. Every line has a purpose—nothing is accidental or left to chance.

Rembrandt Etchings is an accessible book that will guide you on your visual journey of discovery, and allow you to see why Rembrandt was the greatest of all 17th-century printmakers. You will learn a great deal about the technical aspect of printmaking, Rembrandt's choice of papers, his expertise in marketing his etchings, and prints are discussed per genre. The book contains 32 high-quality illustrations.

Written by the Dutch art historian Michiel Kersten, an expert in the field of Dutch 17th-century art.

Closely associated with the social elite, the lute occupied a central place in the culture of the Dutch Golden Age. In this first comprehensive study of the instrument's role in seventeenth-century Netherlands, Jan W. J. Burgers explores how it functioned as the universal means of solo music making, group performance, and accompaniment. He showcases famous and obscure musicians; lute music in books and manuscripts; lute makers and the international lute trade; and the instrument's place in Dutch literature and art of the period.

Enhanced by beautiful illustrations, this study constitutes an important contribution to our knowledge about the lute and its Golden Age heyday.

Samuel van Hoogstraten was not only one of Rembrandt's most successful pupils but also a versatile painter in his own right. His experiments in optical illusion also attracted the interest of the natural scientists of his time, and he wrote some of the first Dutch novels, plays and a treatise on painting. This rich interdisciplinary study examines how van Hoogstraten understood the relationship between art, literature and science and how these reflected the general views of his time. Bringing to the fore hitherto unknown works, the book is an important contribution to our understanding of van Hoogstraten's life and art.

This book presents the first systematic analysis of artistic techniques and terminology related to the rendering of light and shade in Dutch and Flemish art from the early-seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century. It traces a shift in aesthetic perception, which is visible in the handling of chiaroscuro in Dutch and Flemish art in the course of 150 years, and challenges the view, widespread since Julius von Schlosser's influential survey of European art and literarure, that Netherlandish art was mainly uninventive. In their discussions Netherlandish writers of art theory drew on a) earlier and foreign art literature, b) their insights, mainly as painters, into workshop practice, c) observation of nature (including natural sciences) and d) aesthetic judgement. This volume investigates the different extents to which Netherlandisch writers on art depended on these four aspects as they devised their concepts of chiaroscuro and how this relates to contemporary pictorial practice. Statements on chiaroscuro in the writings of Karel van Mander, Philips Angel, Willem Goeree, Samuel van Hoogstraten, Gerard de Lairesse, Arnold Houbraken and Jacob Campo Weyerman have been compared with paintings of the period to test the writers' statements against the artists' methods. The comparison shows that writers of art theory described partly the same or similar methods to achieve effects of chiaroscuro that artists used in their works, which is understandable, given that most of them were active as artists themselves. Yet there are also divergences, especially when it comes to the question whether artists should value rendering natural effects over pictorial coherence. Dutch writers of art regarded natural impression as a crucial aim of art, but they often struggled with reconciling nature and aesthetic requirements in their arguments. In the art of the Netherlands, however, we can observe frequently that aesthetic and pictorial composition came before nature.

The paintings of Willem van Aelst (1627–1683) are known for their fine finish, innovative compositions, sumptuous subject matter, and rich, jewel-toned palette. Published on the occasion of an unprecedented traveling exhibition, this book celebrates Van Aelst's achievements and his significant impact on Dutch still-life painting.
Van Aelst masterfully depicted arrangements of fresh fruit and flowers, displays of dead game, and evocations of the forest floor, as well as elegant objects such as nautilus cups, distinctive silver vessels, and Venetian glassware. This book features twenty-five paintings from throughout his career. Catalog entries and a biographical essay are provided by Tanya Paul, James Clifton writes about the Medici court, Julie Berger Hochstrasser analyzes Van Aelst's choice of subject matter, Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. discusses Van Aelst's time in Amsterdam, and a team of conservators reveals his technical process.

Celebrating the father of the Utrecht School, this record delves into the life of the extraordinary Dutch painter Abraham Bloemaert. A concise biography illustrates how he formed and experienced at least three important styles of art in his time: mannerism, Caravaggism and classicism, producing works in nearly all possible genres. A presentation of this obscure artist's accomplishments in a fantastic exhibition, this work demonstrates why Bloemaert had such a wide influence on painting in the northern Netherlands of the 17th century. Exploring his role as a teacher in addition to his exceptional talent for drawing, this book also examines the Utrecht specialty of painting cycles as well as specific pieces by Bloemaert, such as his altarpieces, religious and mythological works, genre scenes, landscapes and still lifes.

By the end of the seventeenth century, Van Musscher had become a successful portraitist. While visiting the capital in 1687, Swedish architect Nicodemus Tessin deemed him the very best Amsterdam painter for small portraits. He is noted for having portrayed the exuberant lifestyle of the Dutch elite and the wealth of the Golden Age with great pictorial quality and richness in detail. His portraits are painted in the tradition of Netscher and Van Mieris although it is clear that he had seen and drawn inspiration from Vermeer as well for a few of his own compositions. Among his sitters was Tsar Peter the Great.

In the 1660s, Ferdinand Bol, one of Rembrandt's most famous students, painted a set of five wall-sized canvases for a wealthy Calvinist widow from Utrecht. His patron chose the themes of each painting, so that each piece reflected her own political and religious convictions. Thus Bol's work is a powerful tool for both the art and cultural historian, providing insight into the historical milieu of the seventeenth-century Netherlands. Margriet van Eikema Hommes brings this exceptional commission to life using the recent restoration of canvases to perform a "forensic" investigation, and integrating archival research, new scientific techniques for identification, and iconological analysis.

Precisely rendered to dazzle the eye with their botanical accuracy, the sumptuous arrays of fruit and flowers by Dutch painter Jan van Huysum (1682–1749) were among the most avidly collected paintings of the eighteenth century. The arrangements were painstakingly executed over many months and commanded exceptionally high prices from admirers throughout Europe.

This delightful book explores two of Van Huysum's most important still-life paintings, Vase of Flowers and Fruit Piece, both in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum. Executed in 1722, they are among the first works to feature the innovations Van Huysum introduced to a beloved Dutch tradition. Like his seventeenth-century predecessors, Van Huysum combined flowers and fruits that flourished at different times of the year into a single bouquet. He worked directly from nature rather than from sketchbooks and animated the arrangements with crawling insects and butterflies. His inimitable technique resulted in an illusionism that continues to captivate us today. The book's sumptuous plates reveal the artist's highly nuanced palette, and his exuberant, asymmetrical arrangements reflect emerging rococo rhythms.

Golden: Dutch and Flemish Masterworks from the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection accompanies the first major exhibition in the United States of one of the finest private collections of 17th-century Dutch and Flemish paintings in the world, assembled over the past two decades by Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo. In this beautifully illustrated book, works by Rembrandt, Jacob van Ruisdael, Frans Hals, and Jan Brueghel the Elder, among others, represent a wide range of subjects such as land and water, cityscapes and landmarks, still lifes, foreign travels, and burghers, peasants and painters. In addition, fine examples of furniture and decorative arts shed light on the astounding range of this artistic period.

Known as the Golden Age, the 17th century was a time of unparalleled prosperity in the Netherlands, where the emerging merchant class eagerly commissioned and collected paintings, furniture and other decorative arts. Essays by leading scholars address the context of 17th-century Dutch and Flemish painting, and the history and development of this unparalleled collection. The quality and breadth of the Van Otterloos' holdings illuminate one of the greatest artistic and cultural chapters in European history.

Among the rich varieties of genre painting, long recognized as one of the most characteristic and original contributions of the seventeenth-century Dutch school of painting, is a highly entertaining but often overlooked series depicting rowdy, off-duty mercenaries. This hugely successful genre portrayed soldiers as they played cards, drank, rested and frolicked with dubious women. Here Jochai Rosen defines the characteristics and development of this formula, setting it against the prevailing art and culture of the time.

For art history students and scholars, this book grants a unique opportunity to trace the development of a fascinating Dutch genre theme, from its humble beginning in 1620s Amsterdam through its ascent to a nineteenth-century cultural phenomenon.

Hendrick Avercamp (1585–1634) was the first artist to specialize in painting winter landscapes that feature people enjoying themselves on the ice. Scenes of skating, sleigh rides and outdoor games on frozen canals and waterways bring to life the energetic pastimes and day-to-day bustle of the Golden Age. He made the "ice scene" a genre in its own right. Within these winter scenes there is also a social narrative: unencumbered by status, all classes formed one community on the ice, where they went about their daily business and celebrated the delights of the winter conditions.

For the first time in many years this virtuoso artist receives the attention he deserves. The authors explore every aspect of Avercamp's work, from the weather conditions prevalent at the time to details of the clothes worn by the figures in his crowded scenes. Avercamp was also an outstanding draftsman who made individual figure studies that he utilized not only in his painted work but also in compositional drawings.

The question of whether seventeenth-century painters such as Rembrandt and Rubens were exclusively responsible for the paintings later sold under their names has caused many a heated debate. Despite the rise of scholarship on the history of the art market, much is still unknown about the ways in which paintings were produced, assessed, priced and marketed during this period, which leads to several provocative questions: did contemporary connoisseurs expect masters such as Rembrandt to paint works entirely by their own hand? Who was credited with the ability to assess paintings as genuine? The contributors to this engaging collection—Eric Jan Sluijter, Hans Van Miegroet and Neil De Marchi, among them—trace these issues through the booming art market of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, arriving at fascinating and occasionally unexpected conclusions.

Dutch artists dominated the genre of landscape painting in the seventeenth century, and Dutch Landscapes brings together more than one hundred lavish color images of their beautiful paintings, which remain popular with art lovers and museum-goers today.

The volume is dominated by stunning evocations of the landscape of Holland—its manmade lowlands and richly foreboding skies—populated with peasants at their labors and aristocrats riding off to the hunt. But Dutch artists didn't limit themselves to views of their homeland: they also ventured to Italy, where the wildly different landscape inspired new approaches and themes, from Arcadian wilderness to the lively activity of the Roman streetscape. And then there was the sea—the source of the Netherlands' prosperity—which painters captured in all its drama and power.

Desmond Shawe-Taylor's accessible notes to each picture link the paintings and explore their relationships, their shared approaches, and their many innovations; the result is a book that brings to life the Dutch Golden Age in all its glory.

Largely unknown until the 1950s, Adriaen Coorte (active 1683–1707) today is considered one of the most compelling still-life painters of the seventeenth century. After nearly three hundred years of obscurity, his luminous still lifes are now recognized as masterpieces. Coorte's compositions generally consist of a few still-life objects against a dark background. Whether his focus was a bowl of wild strawberries, an arrangement of exotic shells, or a bunch of asparagus, he imbued his scenes with a haunting timelessness. Today he is recognized as a gifted and original master, one whose spare and carefully balanced compositions are highly prized by both public and private collectors.

The National Maritime Museum is home to some of the finest 17th century Flemish and Dutch maritime paintings in the world. Turmoil and Tranquillity shows the breadth of the collection, beginning with the Flemish tradition, the development of distinctly Dutch seascapes, and the foundation of a Netherlandish school of maritime painting in Britain.

Throughout the 17th century a steady stream of Dutch painters made the arduous journey to Italy, the acknowledged "home of art." Where artists of other nationalities studied the great masters of the Renaissance and the contemporary painters of the Baroque, the Dutch were electrified by the magic of Italy itself—its light, people, colors and landscape. In their paintings they recorded the glittering distances of the Roman campagna, the ruins of earlier civilizations, and the colorful characters of the streets and countryside. This volume celebrates the sheer beauty of the Dutch Italianate vision, and the virtuosity, observation and humor of these remarkable artists.

In the hush of early morning, a dutiful mother butters bread for her young son, who patiently stands at her side. This splendid painting captures a trivial moment in a family's daily routine and makes it almost sacrosanct. "A Woman Preparing Bread and Butter for a Boy" was executed by the Dutch painter Pieter de Hooch (1629–1684) between 1661 and 1663. The J. Paul Getty Museum's canvas is one of the artist's many pictures depicting women and children engaged in daily activities. This book examines the painting in relation to the artist's life and work, exploring his stylistic development and his complex relationship to other painters in the Dutch Republic. The author places the subject matter of the painting within the broader context of seventeenth-century Dutch concepts of domesticity and child rearing and ties it to social and cultural developments in the Netherlands during the second half of the seventeenth century.

Wayne Franits is professor of fine arts at Syracuse University and a specialist in seventeenth-century Dutch art. He is the author of numerous publications, the most recent being Dutch Seventeenth-Century Genre Painting: Its Thematic and Stylistic Evolution.

Book review from the Getty website: http://www.getty.edu/bookstore/titles/bread.html

Collected in memory of the Vermeer scholar and Yale economist J. Michael Montias, these essays take into account the latest trends in the field and provide new data on a wide range of topics in Netherlandish art. Themes include the reception of paintings and architecture; art collecting as interpreted through inventories and other documents that reveal modes of display; relationships between patrons and painters; recently found or attributed works of art; artists as teachers; and the art market. Taken together, these focused studies offer fresh perspectives on the historical appreciation and evaluation of art. Drawing upon J.M. Montias' contribution to art history, these 32 essays present new analyses, attributions and documents on Netherlandish art and material culture—including the work of Vermeer, Rubens, Rembrandt, van Eyck and others—by internationally known scholars of art history and the economics of art.

Of particular interest are those essays directly related to Vermeer:

1. Albert Blankert - "The Case of Han van Meegeren's Fake Vermeer 'Supper at Erasmus' Reconsidered"
2. Yoriko Kobayashi-Sato - "Vermeer and the Use of Perspective"
3. Herman Roodenburg - "Visiting Vermeer: Performing Civility"

In this impressive and informative work, the artist's origins and home environment are revealed and his paintings are displayed and discussed within the context of time alongside a history of the influences and repercussions of this master's art.

This lavishly illustrated and beautifully bound edition includes reproductions of all of Vermeer's paintings, many of the works of his contemporaries, and documents relating to his life and city, Delft.

In the hands of an award-winning historian, Vermeer's dazzling paintings become windows that reveal how daily life and thought—from Delft to Beijing—were transformed in the seventeenth century, when the world first became global.

"Vermeer's Hat is a deftly eclectic book, in which Timothy Brook uses details drawn from the great painter's work as a series of entry points to the widest circles of world trade and cultural exchange in the seventeenth century. From the epicenter of Delft, Brook takes his readers on a journey that encompasses Chinese porcelain and beaver pelts, global temperatures and firearms, shipwrecked sailors and their companions, silver mines and Manila galleons. It is a book full of surprising pleasures."
—Jonathan Spence, author of The Death of Woman Wang, In Search of Modern China and The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci

The magnificent still life paintings of the Dutch Golden Age depict tables richly laid with an array of products that attest to the vast scope of the Dutch trade network. These striking pictures reveal much more about Dutch society and capitalist culture of the seventeenth century than has been previously understood, says the author of this engaging book. Julie Berger Hochstrasser explores for the first time the significance of various foods and commodities rendered on canvas during the Dutch Republic's phenomenal rise to prosperity.

From domestic cheese to the wines of Europe to exotic commodities like pepper, porcelain and even slaves imported by the Dutch East and West India Companies, the fruits of global commerce glowed in paintings of the time. Yet an uncomfortable tension exists between these elegant representations of products of trade and the darker aspects of their commodity histories. With penetrating insights, Hochstrasser offers a new and provocative view of Dutch still life paintings.

Willem Drost (1633–1659) was one of Rembrandt's most gifted pupils, and he is also considered one of the most mysterious. This book, the first ever devoted to this exceptional artist, unravels many of the mysteries of Drost's life and career. Curator and art historian Jonathan Bikker offers not only new archival evidence of the artist's date and place of death, but also a new assessment of Drost's place in the Rembrandt workshop and in the Venetian art world of the mid-17th century. Drost emerges as one of Rembrandt's most talented imitators and, despite his short career, an artist with a variety of faces.

The book features a meticulously researched and fully illustrated catalogue raisonné with 38 paintings now attributed to Drost (several formerly attributed to Rembrandt) and 35 other paintings today known only from old sale catalogues or reproductions. The author also discusses 32 paintings he rejects as Drost's work.

Jan Steen is surely the most amusing painter of the 17th century. His paintings reveal a keen interest in scenes from day to day life, for weddings and feasts, for the celebration of Saint Nicholas and the Epiphany, and never without a comical note. He is also, however, a superb painter with a unique technique and remarkable methods of working. This publication discusses the many works by Jan Steen in the Rijksmuseum, and leads on from there to explore his entire oeuvre. Besides his work the book also describes his life, his self-image and his reputation. The elusive Jan Steen was more than just a comedian and the colloquial symbol of a disorderly household; he was also a connoisseur of art and theatre and well-educated in the stories of classical mythology and the Bible. A gifted and entertaining painter, Jan Steen deserves the fullest praise.

A remarkably versatile man, Jan van der Heyden (1637–1712) was the preeminent painter of cityscapes in the Netherlands and the first artist to capture all the beauty of the urban scene. Notwithstanding his achievements as an artist, Van der Heyden was even more famous in his own time as an inventor and engineer: he invented firefighting equipment that set the standard throughout Europe for two centuries, and he perfected the streetlamp. This is the first book in English devoted to Van der Heyden. It includes recent discoveries about his fascinating life and offers an introduction to his ravishing art.
The book includes a general discussion of Van der Heyden's work, entries on 40 of his paintings, illustrations of about 100 of his paintings, as well as supplemental drawings and prints. Focusing mainly on the bustling city of Amsterdam, he also recorded other Dutch, Flemish and German cities with a brilliant palette and exceptionally detailed technique. Often innovative in his composition, he was the first artist to create imaginary scenes by rearranging existing city views and known buildings.

The artistic culture of the Dutch republic in the seventeenth century has given us some of the most familiar and best-loved examples of European painting. In this fresh and readable account, Westermann describes this art as it was experienced by the people of the period and as it appears to us today. She shows how the history of Dutch art mirrors that of the Republic itself: vigorous, self-governing, and staunchly middle class. The prosperity of Amsterdam, Haarlem and Delft, created and supported such great names as Rembrandt, Vermeer, Frans Hals and Jan Steer, as well as many lesser-known painters and printmakers. Their works are discussed in the political, economic, religious and domestic contexts in which they were produced and seen. By bringing all this together, Westermann creates a richly detailed picture of Dutch culture at an extraordinary moment.

Perspective determines how we, as viewers, perceive painting. We can convince ourselves that a painting of a bowl of fruit or a man in a room appears to be real by the way these objects are rendered. Likewise, the trick of perspective can prevent us from being absorbed in a scene. Connecting contemporary critical theory with close readings of seventeenth-century Dutch visual culture, The Rhetoric of Perspective puts forth the claim that painting is a form of thinking and that perspective functions as the language of the image.

Aided by a stunning full-color gallery, Hanneke Grootenboer proposes a new theory of perspective based on the phenomenological aspects of non-narrative still-life, trompe-l'œil, and anamorphic imagery. Drawing on playful and mesmerizing baroque images, Grootenboer characterizes what she calls their "sophisticated deceit," asserting that painting is more about visual representation than about its supposed objects.

Offering an original theory of perspective's impact on pictorial representation, the act of looking, and the understanding of truth in painting, Grootenboer shows how these paintings both question the status of representation and explore the limits and credibility of perception.

An accessible introduction to Dutch paintings of the seventeenth century, illustrated with fifty of the finest works from the Royal Collection London.

Frankly intended as an overview of Dutch painting for the interested layman, Christopher Lloyd's catalogue of the exhibition is designed in an attractive, small format, loaded with good color reproductions and well-priced. The catalogue begins with a short chapter called "The critical eye: Dutch paintings of the Golden Age," which gathers together quotes about Dutch painting by commentators from Van Mander to Simon Schama. Lloyd then provides an introduction, covering basic information about the history of the United Provinces, the development of Dutch painting in a very general sense, and its critical reception (particularly in Britain), closing with a brief discussion of the "recent upsurge in interest in Dutch seventeenth-century painting." Succinct entries for the paintings on display, largely drawing on existing scholarship and with a reference to Christopher White's catalogue of the collection.

The paintings covered in this appealing book by Mariët Westermann were intended to not only please, but to serve as a kind of visual catalog of the period. Whether the subject was interior or exterior, the paintings provide an almost photographic record that bring to life the physical surroundings of the Dutch people of the seventeenth century. In doing so, they provide insight into their hearts and souls as well. And Westermann proves to be a capable guide through the era.

On 12 October, 1654 a powder magazine exploded in the city of Delft. This explosion had disastrous consequences not only for the city and its inhabitants but also for the art of painting, for its victims included one of the most talented artists of his time, Carel Fabritius. His studio, located a stone's throw from the powder magazine, was swept away, resulting in the loss of an unspecified portion of his oeuvre.

Nevertheless, his extant works, though small in number, are so high in quality and originality that they have earned Fabritius a place among the greatest of the Dutch Golden Age. His extraordinarily fluent brushwork made him Rembrandt's most brilliant pupil, and his bright palette and subtle treatment of light influenced Johannes Vermeer.

The appealing genre paintings of great seventeenth-century Dutch artists—Vermeer, Steen, de Hooch, Dou and others—have long enjoyed tremendous popularity. This comprehensive book explores the evolution of genre painting throughout the Dutch Golden Age, beginning in the early 1600s and continuing through the opening years of the next century. Wayne Franits, a well-known scholar of Dutch genre painting, offers a wealth of information about these works as well as about seventeenth-century Dutch culture, its predilections and its prejudices. The author approaches genre paintings from a variety of perspectives, examining their reception among contemporary audiences and setting the works in their political, cultural and economic contexts. The works emerge as distinctly conventional images, Franits shows, as genre artists continually replicated specific styles, motifs and a surprisingly restricted number of themes over the course of several generations. Luxuriously illustrated and with a full representation of the major artists and the cities where genre painting flourished, this book will delight students, scholars and general readers alike.

Both the choice and quality of the illustrations are extraordinary. Anyone even vaguely interested in Dutch genre painting (scenes of daily life) will find this volume enlightening.

Pieter Claesz (1596/97–1660) is one of the most important still life painters of the Dutch 17th century. Born in Berchem, on the outskirts of Antwerp, he moved in 1620 to Haarlem, where he brought still life painting to unprecedented heights with his innovative approach to the genre. With an economy of means, he was able to infuse such commonplace objects as a pewter pitcher, a loaf of bread, or a simple herring with a sense of monumentality and enchanting beauty.

This richly illustrated book includes images of fifty of the finest paintings Claesz created over the course of his remarkable career. Stunning details further reveal his mastery in capturing both the texture of materials and the effects of light. The introductory essays examine the character and evolution of Pieter Claesz's style of painting, his place in the development of Dutch still life, and the various subjects that appear in his works.

The first major book in English on one of the finest Dutch painters of the 17th century.

The Dutch painter Gerrit ter Borch (1617–1681) was a slightly older contemporary of Johannes Vermeer. Ter Borch's beautiful and evocative paintings were not only varied in subject but also unparalleled among his peers in capturing the elegance and grace of wealthy burghers, the shimmering surface of satin, the undulating rhythms of translucent lace cuffs, and the nuanced psychological interactions between figures in an interior scene. Indeed, ter Borch's genre scenes clearly influenced works later painted by Vermeer.

This lovely book, the first major English-language publication on ter Borch's paintings, presents a selection of some of the most outstanding works from each area of the artist's career: the remarkable early pictures of the 1630s, the midcareer genre paintings for which he is best known, and the small portraits that brought him prosperity throughout his life. Essays by noted experts on Dutch art discuss ter Borch's artistic development, the modern aspects of his paintings, and his renowned technique for painting satin.

This lavishly illustrated book is the catalogue for an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Washington (November 7, 2004 to January 30, 2005), and the Detroit Institute of Arts (February 28 to May 1, 2005).

Albert Eckhout traveled with Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen to Brazil in 1636. Eckhout made life-size illustrations of the local Brazilian population groups and created still lifes composed of exotic plants, flowers and fruits.

Quentin Buvulot's introduction addresses such topics as Eckhout as painter and draftsman (his complete oeuvre being reviewed), the function and iconography of the exhibited paintings and drawings, the artist's technique (this knowledge being based partially on recent technical research) and the donation of the paintings to the Danish king. Elly de Vries and Dante Martins Teixeira have conducted a thorough examination of the Eckhout paintings. Preceded by a short introduction, they use model drawings and detailed explanations to describe the flora, fauna and objects such as jewellery, weapons and baskets that Eckhout illustrated. The book is completed by a brief biography of Albert Eckhout written by Florike Egmond and Peter Manson as based on recent research.

Following up on four previous titles explaining mythological and biblical iconography in paintings, the latest in the Getty's superb series does not disappoint. The myriad plants, flowers, fruits, animals (land, flying and aquatic) and "Creatures of the Imagination" that appear in medieval and Renaissance painting all have symbolic meanings; Impelluso devotes chapters to each of those categories, further dividing them by object: everything from quinces, myrtle and hyacinth to snakes, grasshoppers, sphinxes and harpies get their due. Impelluso (Gods and Heroes in Art) identifies their prominent appearances in various masterworks and explains their varying significances. Most of the reproductions are centered on the page, with small blocks of text surrounding them, with unobtrusive lines connecting the text to the actual objects it describes. It works beautifully, making the often ignored, busy backgrounds of many less-discussed works—like Lucas Cranach the Elder's The Virgin Under the Apple Tree and Leonardo da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine—come alive with meaning.

from the Waanders website:

Albert Blankert is best known to general readers for his standard book on the life and art of Johannes Vermeer, which has appeared in many editions and languages all over the world. Insiders are equally appreciative of his achievements in devising and mounting numerous large-scale exhibitions and the catalogues to accompany them, not only those of Rembrandt and his pupils, but also, and perhaps most notably, his epoch-making shows of outstanding artists who had hitherto suffered unjust neglect. Italianate landscapists, history painters and classicists.

True connoisseurs relish most of all Blankert's concise, insightful essays suggesting apt solutions to fundamental art historical questions.

Twenty-three of his best pieces of writing have been carefully selected for this book, representing a career that spans four decades. They stand the test of time astonishingly well; where needed, the author has fully updated them for this book. Blankert's work has profoundly influenced the thinking of scholars of Dutch art. Nonetheless, his lucid, jargon-free style of writing is always addressed and attuned to the common sense of the ordinary reader.

In this handsome catalogue, more than 230 painted portraits from the renowned collection of the Mauritshuis are reproduced and described. Besides portraits by the three great masters of seventeenth-century Dutch portraiture, Rembrandt, Hals and Vermeer—including world famous works such as The anatomy lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp and Girl with a pearl earring—many other paintings from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries are presented. They included masterpieces by Flemish masters such as Van Dyck and Rubens, and even some rare portraits by Holbein and Memling.

In the first part of this large and attractively designed catalogue, 60 portraits are discussed in great detail, while the second part contains concise entries of over 170 other paintings. The introductory essay discusses the genesis of this fascinating collection and points out relationships between a number of the portraits it contains.

Ten of de Jongh's most influential articles on seventeenth-century Dutch painting are brought together in this volume: "Certain objects or motifs often serve a dual function. They operate as concrete, observable things while at the same time doing something totally different, namely expressing an idea, a moral, an intention, a joke or a situation."

The Detroit Institute of Arts offers a comprehensive look at its renowned seventeenth-century Dutch painting collection in the new book Masters of Dutch Painting, published by D Giles Ltd. in association with the DIA. Over 100 color photographs, accompanied by artist biographies, commentary and other comprehensive information lead the reader on a fascinating tour of one of the top collections of paintings by Dutch masters in the United States. With 120 color and 145 black and white illustrations and biographical information on more than 100 Dutch artists.

Known as an obscure stranger, Michael Sweerts was one of the most creative, mysterious and most recognisable artists from the 17th century. He was a painter, an art dealer, a teacher, a deeply religious man and almost always described as an outsider who neither associated with the Dutch and Flemish artists in Rome where he stayed nor became affiliated with the official institutes of his time.

Due to his stays in Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy, the works of Sweerts combined artistic and cultural elements from Northern and Southern Europe. Sweerts painted people from the street with sympathy and respect but also painted portraits of wealthy gentlemen. He was also interested throughout his life in art education: many of his paintings have studios with students of painting as their subject. Inspiration often came from classical antiquity. Most of his paintings have secular themes, but he also created a number of historical pieces. Sweerts was also a talented printmaker who portrayed human figures for his own learning and pleasure.

Michael Sweerts contains reproductions of almost 60 paintings and etchings, thus making this book an exceptional overview of his work. This is the first publication to reproduce certain paintings from private and public collections. Also published for the first time are recent research finding. In addition, the book goes into detail about the difference in techniques used by Northern and Southern European painters.

Here, lay readers are given an overview of Vermeer's city, Delft, and the painters who depicted it around Vermeer's time. Essays by the National Gallery of Art's Wheelock, who is widely published on Vermeer, and his Dutch colleagues get beyond the surface of the attractive still lifes, city views, and domestic and institutional interiors to give a flavor of life and society in the Dutch Republic. Each of the 35 paintings in the exhibition is represented in an excellent plate and large detail and receives a thorough discussion in light of Dutch society, economy, religion and so forth. Also included is a complete catalog of Vermeer's works, consisting solely of title, color illustration, and collection, three to a page.

The caress of fabrics, the sheen of metal, the brittle luminosity of glass—Dutch genre painters of the Golden Age were so skilled at mimicking the appearance of things that their largely imaginary domestic scenes are utterly convincing pictures of life as it was once lived.

Art and Home reveals the tricks behind this illusion and gives us insight into the social reality that animates the deception. We learn why domestic interiors were a favorite subject for seventeenth-century Dutch artists and their middle-class customers. And we come to understand why these images of home and family, the earliest in the history of art, still speak to us 300 years later in a voice as fresh and powerful as when they first appeared.

This is the story of an art that echoed and shaped the ideals of an emerging nation, a sensitive portrait of the painted fictions that laid the ground for our modern concept of "home" as the compass of our true selves.

This richly illustrated volume offers a selection of the most beautiful Dutch seventeenth-century paintings from the Lugt Collection. The great connoisseur Frits Lugt (1884–1970) is today primarily recognized as a collector of drawings and prints by Dutch and Flemish masters. Far less is known, however, about his important collection of paintings.

There can be no doubt that Lugt had a taste for the unusual in the oeuvre of famous artists, and that he had a marked preference for landscape paintings. The works—mostly executed in a small format—are not only well preserved but also of exceptional quality, designed to fit perfectly in the intimacy of a home.

The experience of a person today who views paintings by Rembrandt, Vermeer and other Dutch Old Masters differs radically from the experience of the Dutch man or woman who may have seen the same paintings three centuries ago. This is an exploration of the way in which paintings were displayed and comprehended in seventeenth-century Holland. It offers many insights into life in the Dutch Golden Age as well as ways of interpreting the paintings of this period. Klaske Muizelaar and Derek Phillips closely examine how paintings reflected and influenced the domestic and imaginative lives of the Dutch people, particularly in Amsterdam. They consider men and women as the producers, subjects and viewers of art, uncovering seventeenth-century assumptions about the nature of men and women, ideals of sexually appropriate conduct, and actual sexual practices. The work concludes with an examination of what is altered when works that were created for viewing in the home become museum objects.

"[O]ne of the most valuable achievements of this book is its demonstration that this topic is as delightfully complex and problematic as any historian could desire. This book is a fascinating, subtle examination of love, youth and courtship in seventeenth-century Dutch art and a significant contribution to our understanding of this culture and its art." Erin L. Webster, Art Gallery of Ontario; University of Toronto at Scarborough, Sixteenth Century Journal "This book admirably fills a long-standing need for a critical interpretation of scenes of merry gatherings...A main strength of this study is that it considers the literary material of marriage manuals, songbooks, poetry and emblems in conjunction with close visual analysis as keys to interpretation.

Another strength is that the author emphasizes how the visual material may have been regarded and interpreted in its time...A third strength is the range of interpretations proposed, and their presentation as intentionally fluid and ambiguous." Renaissance Quarterly "Although many of the artists' names and their works are familiar to specialists, Nevitt probes their content in novel ways. He writes with a light touch that includes humor, witty turns of phrase, and personal insight, as well as intelligence and wisdom. A splendid, original, richly rewarding book, the second contribution to Cambridge University Press's four-part series on Netherlandish Visual Culture."

Historians of Netherlandish Art Review of Books "Rich in ideas...beautifully produced."

Set high on a ridge in historic parkland less than five miles from Trafalgar Square, Kenwood is London's favorite "country house." Remodeled by Robert Adam in the eighteenth century, in 1928 it became the home of the Iveagh Bequest, a superb collection of old master paintings donated by Edward Cecil Guinness, First Earl of Iveagh. The collection includes Rembrandt's most celebrated self-portrait, one of only five Vermeer's in Britain, Gainsborough's Countess Howe, and classic works by Reynolds, Romney, Lawrence and Turner.

This handsome book is published to mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of the opening of the Iveagh Bequest and is the first new catalogue of the collection to be produced in fifty years. It discusses each work, revealing details about the portrait subjects, the social circumstances of each commission, and the way that art met the ambitions of artists, patrons, sitters and collectors. There are also two introductory essays that provide historical background. The Kenwood is the home of Vermeer's splendid late Guitar Player.

—Julius Bryant is chief curator at English Heritage.

In this study of Amsterdam's Golden Age cultural elite, John Michael Montias analyzes records of auctions from the Orphan Chamber of Amsterdam through the first half of the seventeenth century, revealing a wealth of information on some 2,000 art buyers' regional origins, social and religious affiliations, wealth and aesthetic preferences. Chapters focus not only on the art dealers who bought at these auctions, but also on buyers who had special connections with individual artists.

This lavishly illustrated color catalogue is the record of a magnificent private collection of Dutch and Flemish, seventeenth-century cabinet-sized paintings. Assembled over 40 years by Willem, Baron van Dedem, it is regarded as the most important private collection of its kind in the UK. Key paintings are promised gifts to the Mauritshuis in the Hague and the National Gallery in London.

The first comprehensive examination of the paintings of Jan Miense Molenaur, one of the masters of the Dutch Golden Age.

Martha Hollander's lively and gracefully written book considers one of the most intriguing features of seventeenth-century Dutch painting: the pictorial language of space, in particular the use of secondary scenes. Many Dutch pictures, especially genre scenes and portraits, introduce a gap through the trees; a view of distant mountains; views through windows, archways, open doors, and pulled-back curtains; or mirrors and pictures-within-pictures to comment on, explain and enrich the primary scene that unfolds on the canvas. Hollander uncovers the meanings generated by the formal structure of such pictures, tracing their heritage in the medieval and Renaissance pictorial traditions of illuminated manuscripts, emblems and stage design. A number of Dutch painters, working for a fiercely competitive art market fostering experiment and novelty, created these secondary scenes in remarkably various and inventive ways. An Entrance for the Eyes focuses on striking features in the works of several artists who carried out bold experiments with space and meaning. Hollander introduces the ideas of pictorial organization formulated by Karel van Mander in both his paintings and his theoretical treatise Het Schilder-boeck. She explains how Gerard Dou (1613–1675), in his tightly constructed allegorical pictures, particularly those set in niches, used the secondary space to comment on the figure in the foreground.

Pieter Saenredam (1597–1665) was one of the magical painters of 17th-century Holland, a time known as the Golden Age of Dutch Art. He spent his career immortalizing the churches of Holland in drawings and paintings. Working through a series of perspective drawings to the finished painting, he made innumerable fine adjustments to architectural details to create what may be justly called spaces of wondrous perfection of proportion and luminosity. Pieter Saenredam, The Utrecht Work is published to coincide with an exhibition of Saenredam's drawings and paintings, originally held at the Centraal Museum, Utrecht and on view from April 16 through July 7, 2002 at the Getty Museum. This elegant volume brings together more than sixty drawings and paintings depicting the beautiful and historically venerable churches of the Dutch city of Utrecht.

In its golden age, according to Erik de Jong, Dutch landscape architecture constituted a major, distinct phase in the European development of the art. In Nature and Art, de Jong examines five garden reconstructions—Het Loo, Heemstede, Zijdebalen and the medicinal gardens of Leiden and Haarlem—within their unique cultural and geographic framework in order to establish the historical importance and singularity of Dutch garden art.

Interest in geometric gardens was shared by all strata of Dutch society from courtiers to burghers; paintings, travel books, and poetry of the period contain evidence of the landscape garden's popularity. While the Dutch professed an ideal of outdoor life, in reality it was not nature that held sway, but rather design, which subjected nature to the rules of art. The garden was not so much a place of solitary retreat as a work of art through which to reveal oneself to the outside world. De Jong sets specific Dutch creations on the European map alongside the works of Le Notre in France, and argues for their independent identity in a rival tradition of equal importance.

Aelbert Cuyp was one of the foremost Dutch painters and draughtsmen of the 17th century. His prolific artistic career, in which he produced idyllic views of the Dutch countryside, spanned the years between 1640 and 1665, the Golden Age of Dutch painting. At the core of this book and the exhibition it accompanies are 45 of Cuyp's most distinguished paintings and 64 drawings, taken largely from the collections of the organizing institutions but also from other British, Dutch, American and German museums and private collections. The appeal of the work lies not only in the subject matter but also in their distinctive style. Cuyp infused his Arcadian subjects and river views with a sensitivity to light and a clarity of form that is firmly grounded in reality. The essays, by curators and scholars, discuss Cup's work in the context of his time, personal background, artistic development, patrons, use of costume and artistic techniques.

Gerrit Dou, an early pupil of Rembrandt, was one of the most highly esteemed Dutch painters of the 17th century, celebrated for the extraordinarily sensitive images he created with his fine and delicate technique. This beautiful book assembles and discusses thirty-five of his finest paintings. Founder of the Leiden school of fijnschilderen, or "fine painters," Dou had an international clientele and was lauded by the theorist Philips Angel in his 1642 treatise Lof der Schilderkonst as an artist worthy of the honour accorded the ancients. The book presents a wide range of subjects painted by Dou over the course of his career. These include portraiture, still life, and religious images as well as scenes of daily life—mothers with their children, painters in their studios, scholars, shopkeepers, schoolmasters, musicians and astronomers. Many of these works incorporate symbolic elements that Dou used to reflect the complexity of life's moral and ethical dilemmas.

Foreign travellers in the Netherlands described the large number of paintings and works of art in the houses of the seventeenth century citizenry. Both humble craftspeople and well-to-do regents with fashionable tastes collected paintings.

In Works of Art in Seventeenth Century Houses, various aspects of the history of art collecting are examined using a large number of inventories. How was the art collection of citizens in the seventeenth century composed? How were the works of art distributed over the rooms of the houses? What significance did they have in the interior? In what way were paintings and objects of applied art presented?

This rich and rewarding volume accompanies a wide-ranging exhibition, which opened to deserved acclaim at New York's Metropolitan Museum and was also on view at the National Gallery in London, it evokes the artistic life of Delft from 1200 to 1700 and the rich history of the town's influence on Dutch culture. This volume is the most exhaustive study to date of the School of Delft and an extraordinary study of Vermeer's work as well.

Outstanding

Paintings and prints representing beauty and seduction, love and desire, chastity and unchastity assumed a conspicuous position in Dutch art of the seventeenth century. Seductress of Sight includes six studies originally published in Dutch that shed new light on intriguing aspects of Dutch art of the period. In highly divergent ways, Hendrick Goltzius and Gerrit Dou, the two artists who take center stage in these studies, developed a breathtaking virtuosity in the service of such themes, producing works that were exceptionally valued by collectors and art lovers.

Seductress of Sight considers why certain subjects were selected, why they were considered so attractive, and what thoughts and associations these visual delights evoked. Sluijter examines the patterns of selection, and the way in which artists treated pictorial traditions and iconographic conventions in themes and motifs. The author offers striking insights into the meaning which these images had for the artist and his audience.

This book is a collection of writings on aspects of painting in Delft during the period 1650–1675. Walter Liedtke, highly respected curator and scholar of Dutch and Flemish art, discusses at length the work of four artists: Carel Fabritius, Gerard Houckgeest, Pieter de Hooch, and Johannes Vermeer. Liedtke considers recent interpretations and research on these artists' works, exploring in particular the relationship between style and observation in their paintings.

The book begins by examining the question of whether such a community or tradition as the "Delft School" ever existed and by reviewing earlier opinions on the matter. The second chapter is devoted to Fabritius's small townscape A View in Delft, its reconstruction as an illusionistic image originally mounted in a perspective box, and the painting's significance in the narrow and in the broadest sense. In the third chapter, Leidtke focuses on a specialized genre in Delft—views of actual church interiors—and offers another explanation of how naturalistic paintings, even those that carefully record existing sites, inevitably depend upon pictorial precedents. The fourth chapter on De Hooch and the "South Holland" tradition of genre painting prepares the way for the fifth, a look at Vermeer's early work. In the final chapter, the author considers Vermeer's work as a mature artist, one who has completely mastered his means.

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The wonderful portraits of children that Dutch and Flemish artists painted in the late Renaissance and Baroque periods offer a fascinating look not just at the youngsters themselves—along with their clothes, toys and pets—but also at the society in which they lived. The charming pictures in this unique book demonstrate that 500 years ago children were, as they are now, their parents' pride and joy.

At first glance, these young people in their elaborate clothing and fancy headgear hardly resemble modern youth. But their fresh faces and vivid expressions transcend time. Superb full-page colorplates reproduce 85 of the best of these portraits—by famous and lesser-known artists alike—while essays by leading art and cultural historians set them in context. Countless parents have formal portraits or studio photographs made of their children. For them, as well as for art lovers and students, Pride and Joy should hold an irresistible fascination.

Van de Wetering's approach to Rembrandt's painting eschews traditional stylistic analysis and iconographic explication in favor of examining the artist's materials and methods of painting. This technical approach is neatly conjoined with an appreciation of the artistic theory that affected the master's manner. The careful exfoliating of data derived from the laboratory about panels, canvases, underpainting, colors, binders, varnishes and so forth, along with a subtle exploitation of documentary sources, suggests a useful and fresh approaches to Rembrandtian problems. While a radical new understanding of the master's art does not emerge from this study, the Rembrandt student will be disabused of conventional notions about his painting methods, pictorial construction, use of drawing, and likely original appearance.

This beautiful book is an intensive and visually enchanting examination of nineteen flower and still life masterpieces from museums aroun the world. This book was written in conjuction with the show presented at the Rijksmuseum, June through September of l999. Art lovers, artists, scholars, conservators and laymen will enjoy this journey back to the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century workshops of such artistic giants as Jan Brueghel, Jan Davidsz de Heem, Rachel Ruysch, Jan Van Huysum and more. Historical backgrounds of fifteen painters are featured along with technical information on supports (canvas, wood or copper), imprimaturas, under drawings, mediums and paints. Beautiful color plates, artistic techniques, and scientific knowledge are shared.

A spectacular exhibition at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in 1999 and a copiously illustrated catalogue will present the other face of the Golden Age: the painters of Dutch Classicism. The catalogue examines every facet of Dutch Classicism. Attention is paid to the relationship of Dutch Classicism to seventeenth-century architecture and literature. The publication contains three introductory essays: Albert Blankert on classicist painting, its context and meaning; Koen Ottenheym on architecture; and Arie Jan Gelderblom on classicist tendencies in poetry and literature. Then 68 paintings are shown and discussed by Albert Blankert, Nathalie Dufais, Jeroen Giltaij, Friso Lammertse, Melanie Mathijsen, Lawrence W. Nichols, Peter C. Sutton, Irene van Thiel-Stroman, Christiaan Vogelaar and others. These 68 entries include an extensive list of sources, biographies, history, bibliography, connections to other works of art and other disciplines, explanations of the contents (mythology), etc. The book includes an extensive bibliography and index.

Masterpieces of Dutch art from the seventeenth century: this sumptuous survey illuminates the extraordinary richness and versatility of the art produced in Holland in the seventeenth century of the Dutch Golden Age. It is published on the occasion of an ambitious exhibition organized to celebrate the bicentenary of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture and the decorative arts: more than 200 works of art have been carefully selected from the extensive holdings of the Rijksmuseum and from museums and private collections around the world. The paintings and drawings—portraits, landscapes, still lifes, genre painting, history painting—include masterpieces by the renowned painters Hals, Rembrandt, Ruisdael, Steen and Vermeer. The applied arts are represented by exquisite examples of Delftware, silver by the brothers van Vianen, tapestries by Francois Spiering, and more. The accompanying text describes in detail the development and accomplishments of Dutch art in the seventeenth century. With its wealth of illustrations and extensive reference section, The Golden Age of Dutch Art provides the most comprehensive overview possible of this seminal period in Western art.

In The Group Portraiture of Holland, art historian Alois Riegl (1858–1905) argues that the artists of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Holland radically altered the beholders relationship to works of art. Group portraits by artists such as Rembrandt and Frans Halls reflect an egalitarian viewpoint not found in the more hierarchically structured Italian works of the same period. First published in 1902 and here in English for the first time, the book opened up areas of inquiry that continue to engage scholars today.

The Royal Cabinet of Paintings in the Mauritshuis, in the Hague, houses the oldest national collection of paintings in the Netherlands. This selection of seventeenth-century "Genre" paintings includes works by Jan Steen, Molenaar and Adriaen vaan Ostade.

This text explores the aspects of a truly creative period in Dutch art when sureness of instinct and quality of performance held a safe balance. The work of the great masters and their impact on others are analyzed and set in the context of a period of re-establishment in many areas of life.

This is the first survey of the diverse critical understandings of seventeenth-century Dutch art from its origins to the present. Appreciated in the eighteenth century by amateurs and collectors, Dutch art during the Romantic age became a focus of ideological interest. From the late 19th century onward, it developed into a subject of scholarly research, indeed one of the foundational fields of art history in the modern era. This study provides insight into the various artistic, literary, political and philosophical approaches that Dutch painting has inspired over the ages.

Painting in the Netherlands during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries offers a compelling visual record of the tastes and values of a prosperous society mindful of its obligation to personal and public standards. This richly illustrated volume examines twenty-six paintings by master artists from this Golden Age of Dutch art and features essays by leading scholars who explore the various interpretations of these works within the context of their culture.

Building on Weber's notion that Protestantism fosters the accumulation of wealth, Larsen argues that social and economic forces influence the form, style and content of art. To demonstrate his point, he provides a compelling analysis of the creation of art in the Netherlands during the seventeenth century. He examines how growing capitalism spawned a wealthy middle class that shaped Dutch painting into a national style through its patronage. He contrasts this style with the Baroque school of Flanders to the south and explores the reasons behind the differences in artistic expression. Art Historians as well as other scholars interested in the social ramifications of capitalism will find much to their liking in this stimulating work.

This beautiful book examines the art of Pieter de Hooch, one of the most famous and innovative painters of Holland's Golden Age. It discusses de Hooch's position in Dutch genre painting, his favorite themes and their cultural context, his artistic development, and his approach to narration.

The director of the Wadsworth Atheneum, Sutton has written an accessible monograph that, updates his earlier catalogue of the artist's work and serves as the catalog for a de Hooch exhibition appearing in London and Hartford. Sutton has achieved the rare feat of creating a work that is both a significant addition to scholarship and a reader-friendly introduction for those not already familiar with the artist.

This beautiful catalog presents a comprehensive treatment of the achievements of the Utrecht school of painters. Unlike their more well known compatriots, Rembrandt and Vermeer, who perfected naturalistic portraits of seventeenth-century Dutch cultural life, the Utrecht masters (including Abraham Bloemart and Cornelis van Poelenburch) infused their canvases with a blend of mythological imagination, baroque religiosity, and a Dutch sense of nature. Van Poelenburch's Landscape with the Flight into Egypt, which sets the biblical flight of Joseph and Mary against a vast seventeenth-century Utrecht landscape, is one of many examples of this distinctive artistic approach. The catalog also features eight scholarly essays on the sociopolitical milieu that gave rise to the Utrecht school. As a predominantly Catholic province, Utrecht proved both receptive to the Caravaggesque sensibilities of these artists and more generous in its patronage of their works than other parts of Protestant mercantile Holland. The writing is at times uneven, but overall this is a solid academic study that promises to broaden our understanding of Dutch art.

Despite the active tradition of scholarship on Dutch painting of the seventeenth century, scholars continue to grapple with the problem of how the strikingly realistic characteristics of art from this period can be reconciled with its possible meanings. With the advent of new methodologies, these debates have gained momentum in the past decade. Looking at 17th-Century Dutch Art, which includes classic essays as well as contributions especially written for this volume, provides a timely survey of the principal interpretative methods and debates, from their origins in the 1960s to current manifestations, while suggesting potential avenues of inquiry for the future. The book offers fascinating insights into the meaning of Dutch art in its original cultural context as well as into the world of scholarship that it has inspired.

During the seventeenth century, the Netherlands—a small country with just two million inhabitants and virtually no natural resources—enjoyed a "Golden Age" of economic success, world power, and tremendous artistic output. In this book North examines the Dutch Golden Age, when Dutch society boasted Europe's greatest number of cities and highest literacy rate, unusually large numbers of publicly and privately owned art works, religious tolerance, and a highly structured and wide-ranging social network.

Jan Steen, the quintessential 17th-century Dutch painter, set himself apart from other painters with an astonishing range of brushwork skills and diversity of themes and genres. Although he is best known for his paintings of ambiguous scenes set in inns or of doctors visiting patients he also painted sensitive portraits, depicting the upper classes with great skill, as well as religious and mythological scenes. Forty-five of Steen's finest works have been carefully selected to exemplify both the exceptionally wide range and superb quality of his work.

The book demonstrates the mastery of an artist whose touch could be both meticulous and slipshod. It also provides a sample of his uniquely comical view of human behaviour. This lavishly illustrated book shows Steen`s consummate skill as painter and storyteller, reassesses the artist in the context of his times, and presents the most comprehensive biographical profile of Steen yet published.

The Golden Age is a modern and wide-ranging chronology that not only complies with recent scholarly insights but also makes fascinating reading for all those wishing to become informed about this extremely flourishing artistic period. The lucid text discusses more than four hundred painters and is accompanied by reproductions typical of each artist's work. With no fewer than 1117 reproductions, of which 74 are colour plates, the reader becomes acquainted with Dutch society in all its surprising diversity.

A series of interconnected essays on love and courtship as themes in Dutch art, this study examines pictorial subjects and artists that have never been considered together: paintings and prints of "garden parties" by David Vinckboons and Esaias van de Velde, merry companies by Willem Buytewech, paintings of courting couples observing peasant festivities by Jan Miense Molenaer, two portraits by Frans Hals and two important landscape etchings by Rembrandt. Nevitt places these works in the context of the culture of love at the time, which manifested itself in the social practices of courtship and a variety of amatory texts.

From the hardships of a long and arduous war with Spain, the seventeenth-century Dutch seem to have drawn strength and expressed pride in their unique social and cultural heritage, especially in their art. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., the Gallery's curator of northern Baroque painting, has carefully studied the Gallery's collection by masters of the Golden Age of Dutch art—notably Cuyp, De Hooch, Rembrandt, Ruisdael and Vermeer. The twenty-three paintings by Rembrandt and his school are elucidated by an essay on the question of attribution, while an appendix of artists' signatures amplifies and supports the author's wide-ranging discussions of this remarkably cohesive collection.

This scholarly work examines seventeenth-century Dutch flower painting within the contexts of symbolism, political and economic events, religion, art criticism, and the art market. Detailed discussions use seventeenth-century sources to explore the significance of these paintings to their cultural contemporaries. Attractive reproductions, most of them in color, serve to illustrate the points that are made in the text. Interested lay readers are likely to enjoy the reproductions and discussions of individual painters. Because much of the book concentrates on fairly narrow interpretive issues, however, it will be of primary interest to scholars and students of the period.

Paragons of Virtue is the first systematic analysis of domestic paintings, which were among the most popular and endearing images produced by Dutch artists during the Golden Century. Focusing on their broader function and significance within Dutch culture, this study has made extensive use of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century family treatises that are important sources for understanding these paintings. Through its rich source material and the paintings themselves, Paragons of Virtue sheds further light on the position of women in 17-century Dutch society and on the critical role that art played in early modern Europe in espousing and maintaining the patriarchal status quo.

Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, Ruisdael, Cuyp, de Witte, van Goyen, van de Velde, Saenredam and de Hooch are just some of the painters whose works document the uniqueness, vitality and genius of seventeenth-century Dutch painting. It was an age of discovery of the natural world and of the everyday world. There was a new humanization of art and a rich and varied range of subject matter in Dutch painting of this period.

Madlyn Kahr describes and interprets this fascinating period as a whole and the different artists and their most notable works, providing a fresh appraisal and understanding.

Judith Leyster (1609–1660), the most famous woman painter of the Dutch golden age, was remarkable for her time. She pursued a profession dominated by men, was the only female member of the painter's guild known to have had a workshop, and is the sole woman artist whose known work attests to an active role in the open market, then a relatively new form of art patronage that was to transform the Dutch art world. This book gives new insights into Leyster's world—her life, her art, and the society in which she lived. Written by a team of scholars that includes art historians, economic historians, and painting conservators, the book discusses Leyster's life, the close link between art and the economy in Holland at this time, the social factors affecting Leyster and other working women in the 17th century, the lives of the major painters who were her contemporaries, the nature of Leyster's painting technique and style, and the unique qualities of her art. The second half of the book reproduces Leyster's paintings—including her captivating scenes of everyday life—and analyses each in detail. Carefully selected paintings by other artists of the period, including Frans and Dirck Hals and Leyster's husband, Jan Miense Molenaer, are also presented in order to place Leyster's work in the context of Haarlem genre painting at its height.

The study begins with a biography of Netscher and overview of critical reception, followed by an analysis of his Oeuvre and his contribution to the development of a new artistic mode in the late 17th. century.

The Dutch of the seventeenth century were the first Europeans to specialize in marine art, and the achievements of the celebrated Dutch masters attest to the vitality and enduring appeal of Dutch marine art. Mirror of Empire is a catalogue that accompanies a traveling exhibition sponsored by The Minneapolis Institute of Arts. It is the first survey in English of Dutch marine art of the seventeenth century and includes many of the works of both Willem Van de Velde the Elder and Willem Van de Velde the Younger. The catalogue focuses on paintings, drawings, prints, sea charts and related cartographical material, while stressing the relationships among marine art and, commerce and the tremendous significance of Dutch ship design. Mirror of Empire provides biographies of Dutch marine artists and contributors' essays on related topics that help explain the works of art within the larger historical context of their time period. These topics include the Dutch trade routes that ensured the Dutch Republic its preeminent position in seventeenth-century Europe, the design and function of Dutch ships, the iconography of Dutch marine paintings as found in Dutch genre pictures of the period, and the importance of Dutch cartography to Western civilization.

Despite Calvinist sermons on thrift, the Dutch upper and middle classes flaunted their wealth in the consumer paradise that was 17th century Hollandbut they lived uneasily with material riches. How the Dutch reconciled piety with their commitment to profits is just one of the conundrums explored in this cultural history by a Harvard professor. Netherlandic seafarers built a world empire in just two generations; the Dutch nation's precocious rise to power as presented here helps to explain their defensive patriotism, the mania of housewives for cleanliness and the ideal of the family as a miniature commonwealth. The Dutch urge to classify was evident in everything from their tulip classification system to paintings of children's games. Delving into customs, beliefs, popular art and quirks of behavior, Schama has fashioned a tour de force, a profound, unconventional and rewarding portrait of a people.

This influential work examines the influence of culture, science and technology on the art of Dutch painters, including Vermeer, Rembrandt and Rubens.

"There is no doubt that thanks to Alpers's highly original book the study of the Dutch masters of the seventeenth century will be thoroughly reformed and rejuvenated. . . . She herself has the verve, the knowledge, and the sensitivity to make us see familiar sights in a new light."
—E. H. Gombrich

In this richly illustrated book nine authors—historians and art historians—provide background information about socio-economical aspects of the province of Holland in the seventeenth century. Their leitmotiv is the bibliography of the painter Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675). This prompts examinations of the environment in which Vermeer lived and worked and a critical scrutiny of certain biographical data and accepted views on the painter. One question that arises is whether he really was the unrecognized genius or impoverished artist of popular opinion.

This book examines Vermeer's social background, his training, the professional rules he had to observe, the "market" for which he painted, the prices of his paintings and his income.

Waanders Publishing