Painting in the Dutch Republic during the Golden Age was rich in landscapes, interiors and images of everyday life, but didn’t abandon storytelling. Many of Rembrandt’s finest works are religious narratives and tales drawn from classical mythology and history. This article shows a selection of paintings by the less famous, and how their stories extended beyond those that had been most popular in the Renaissance.

The Annunciation (1667) is a large canvas, and among the few religious paintings that Adriaen van de Velde made following his marriage to a Catholic woman, and his conversion to Catholicism. Although the angel is a little awkward, it seems hard to believe that this was painted by a landscape specialist.

Three years later, van de Velde painted a classical myth in his superb Vertumnus and Pomona (1670). Vertumnus was the Roman god of seasons and change, who could assume whatever form he wished. Book fourteen of Ovid’s Metamorphoses tells the story of his transformation into the form of an old woman, seen here on the left, so that he could gain entry to Pomona’s orchard and seduce her. Sadly, the yellow he used to mix greens has faded in parts, leaving some of his vegetation blue.

Jan Lievens’ painting of Quintus Fabius Maximus from 1656 may refer to this Roman’s victory at Tarentum, as told in Plutarch’s Lives. The great Carthaginian general Hannibal was only five miles away at the time of the Roman repossession of Tarentum, and this made Hannibal realise the impossibility of mastering Italy.

Paintings of fables, that had already started to become popular among Flemish artists at this time, appeared in the Republic to the north. Among them was the story of the Satyr and the Traveller, or the Man and the Satyr. A man made friends with a satyr; when the man’s hands were cold, he blew on them to warm them up. When the two were eating together, the man blew on his hot food in order to cool it down. The satyr decided that he couldn’t trust a creature whose breath blew both hot and cold, so broke off their friendship.

In 1653, Constantijn à Renesse, a former pupil of Rembrandt, painted his version of this fable in Satyr at the Peasant’s House. This shows one of the family blowing on the hot food in their spoon, although at this stage the satyr hasn’t reacted to the contradiction.

Jan Steen, in his telling of The Satyr and the Peasant “Who Blows Hot and Cold” from about 1660, gives a clearer account, with the satyr looking worried at the viewer, as a man (still wearing his hat) blows on a bowl of hot stew. He also pays attention to delightful details such as the cat skulking under the table, and a rich supporting cast.

Steen went on to paint two unusual accounts of what happened in schools across country districts in the Republic.

His The Village School from about 1665 shows physical punishment in a contemporary school. The child at the right holds out a hand for teacher to strike it with a wooden spoon, and is already wiping tears from his eyes. A girl in the middle of the canvas is grimacing in sympathy.

A few years later, Steen painted a scene in a larger and more chaotic classroom, in The Village School from about 1670. Although there are two staff sat at the teachers’ desk, the man is distracted, perhaps in cutting himself a fresh quill. The woman teacher sat next to him is engaged in explaining something to a pupil. Around them, all hell is breaking loose. In the distance, a boy is stood on one of the trestle tables. Older children are teaching younger ones, and a small group at a table at the right are trying to write while others get up to mischief. One younger child in the middle of the foreground has fallen asleep against a hat.

Gerrit Dou approaches social realism in his detailed account of The Young Mother from 1658. As she sits at her needlework, her child is attended in their wickerwork crib by a young nurse. Around them is an eclectic collection of objects, from a large cabbage, hanging game and a bundle of carrots at the right, to a bird cage and an upholstered chair at the left. Suspended above them is a chandelier, and a wooden spiral staircase ascends to the next floor. This family appears to be living in affluent squalor.

There was even an anthropomorphic fad for paintings showing gatherings of birds ‘singing’ together, and I think Melchior d’Hondecoeter’s Concert of the Birds from 1670 is probably the best example of those entertaining paintings.

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in the seventeenth century, series paintings such as the four seasons and five senses tend to be created by Flemish rather than Dutch masters. There’s at least one notable exception, which also includes some of the most overt visual humour of the Dutch Golden Age, painted by Jan Miense Molenaer (c 1610-1668).

Molenaer seems to have spent much of his life in Haarlem, where he’s thought to have been an apprentice of Frans Hals. Other than marrying a fellow apprentice, Judith Leyster, in 1836, and the couple moving their shared studio to Amsterdam for eleven years, little seems known about his life.

The Dentist, painted in 1630, is one of his earlier paintings, and declares his interest in everyday life. A small crowd has gathered outside a church, where a fashionably dressed man is pulling a tooth from a local. The victim is dressed in tatters, with large holes at both his knees and worn-out shoes. Most around him have their hands clasped in prayer, presumably that the victim doesn’t break free and hit his dentist.

Several of Molenaer’s surviving paintings show the making of music, including A Young Man playing a Theorbo and a Young Woman playing a Cittern from about 1630-32. This is set in the interior of an upper middle class home, with a maid serving a meal in the right background. A theorbo is a member of the lute family, and is plucked, while a cittern has metal strings and is more like an ancestor of the guitar.

Several musical instruments also feature in his Allegory of Vanity from 1633, one of his vanitas paintings. An older woman is passing a fine-tooth comb through the long tresses of a younger woman, to check and remove parasites like lice. She is holding a mirror, and resting a foot on a human skull rather than a foot-warmer. The conventional lapdog is replaced by a golden statue, and the young boy in front of her is holding a device used to make bubbles. The woman’s jewellery is on display on a table at the right, and her make-up shown in a dressing table on the left.

Molenaer painted many scenes inside taverns and other places where drinking and gambling took place. His Card Players by Lamplight from about 1634 shows a card game in progress by the light of a lamp mounted on a stand in the foreground. The player looking directly at the viewer clearly thinks he holds the winning ace.

In about 1635, Molenaer painted his family playing music together. Judging by the portraits hanging behind them, the artist is at the extreme left, but his wife Judith Leyster only seems to be shown in her portrait.

Two years later, he painted The Five Senses, relatively small works on panels whose origins are obscure. Most series like these are commissioned, as the chances of finding a purchaser for the whole series are low. These appear to have been completed when he was in Amsterdam, and were only purchased for the Mauritshuis in 1893.

Sight is one of the more straightforward to read, with a man gazing wistfully into an empty flask by the light of the lamp on the table in front of him.

Hearing is more of an allusion, as three men carouse noisily over a mug of drink.

Taste stays in the same drinking room, as one man savours the last drop of drink, while another lights his pipe from the hot embers in a small earthenware container.

Touch is rich in ribald humour. The man on the left has thrust his left hand up to grope inside the woman’s skirts, for which she is about to bring her slipper down forcefully on his head.

Smell completes the series with the best of his visual jokes. The woman on the right is cleaning up the bum of the infant on her lap. This also shows severe fading on her skirt, which was painted using indigo with lead white. The original was far darker, as can be seen by the deeper blue at the edge of the panel, where the frame has shielded the pigment from light.

Although Molenaer continued to paint prolifically, this series marks his zenith, with fine examples of genre paintings during the Dutch Golden Age.

By about 1650, Aelbert Cuyp (1620–1691) had demonstrated his proficiency in painting a wide variety of subjects and genres, from mythological landscapes to farm animals. He had become influenced by Jan Dirksz Both (c 1610-52), who had recently returned from working with Claude Lorrain in Rome.

At their best, Cuyp’s coastal landscapes, such as The Maas at Dordrecht from about 1650, are full of rich light, earning him the title of the Dutch Claude Lorrain. This shows another passage boat packed with passengers, together with its drummer.

Also thought to have been painted in about 1650, shortly before his father’s death, it’s possible that Two Cavalry Troopers Talking to a Peasant is a collaboration between father and son. Although there’s a slight awkwardness in the figures, the horses are finely painted with great detail on their saddlery, including glinting buckles.

Some of his landscapes from this period appear to have been painted in very different terrain. His Migrating Peasants in a Southern Landscape from about 1652 shows people dressed for the more temperate climate of northern Europe in a landscape that could be further south.

Cuyp’s grand view of The Valkhof at Nijmegen from about 1652-54 shows the Imperial castle that was demolished in 1798, on its small hill beside the river. The landscape is bathed in golden light, and broken clouds are tinged with similar Claudean colour as they drift through its lucent sky.

In about 1655, Cuyp painted this narrative landscape with the story of Saint Philip Baptising the Ethiopian Eunuch, referring to the account of Philip the Evangelist in chapter 8 of the Acts of the Apostles. Following the instructions of an angel, Philip went to the road between Jerusalem and Gaza, where he met the treasurer to Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians. As the Ethiopian Eunuch was sitting reading Old Testament scripture in his chariot, Philip explained the text and taught him the Gospel of Jesus. The eunuch was converted and baptised as a result.

Cuyp sets this story in a golden Claudean landscape more akin to the south of France or even Italy, with rich detail in the riverside plants, the figures and animals.

Although Cuyp doesn’t appear to have painted many winter scenes, his Ice Scene Before the Huis te Merwede near Dordrecht from about 1655 is up with the leaders. Notable here are his foreground reflections, and another wonderful sky with its warm clouds. This castle was built to the south-east of Dordrecht in the early fourteenth century, and ruined a hundred years later.

A Senior Merchant of the Dutch East India Company is a fascinating double portrait painted during 1650-59. It’s thought to show Jacob Mathieusen and his wife, against a background of the company fleet in Batavia roads. This city in what was then the Dutch East Indies is now the site of Jakarta in Indonesia. There’s no record of Cuyp ever having visited this imagined location, and he appears to have painted the background on the basis of contemporary topographic images, then painted his subjects in the studio.

A Road near a River from about 1660 is the last of Cuyp’s paintings for which I have a date, and perhaps his finest closing summary. It’s a landscape in the style of Claude Lorrain, with long shadows and the warmth of the setting sun. There’s a small flock of sheep and a sleeping dog, the shepherd chatting with a friend. Further down that road are two more figures, one of them sat on a pony. On the other side of the river with its broken reflections, is a cottage and more people. In the distance is a thoroughly alien crag and the ruins of a castle. Above all this is the peaceful sky of settled weather, divided into two by a pair of finely crafted trees.

Cuyp’s undated Interior of a Cowshed is a fine portrait of a cow leading the herd into a shed, with good use made of chiaroscuro and details of the tools, tackle and equipment inside.

In 1658, Cuyp married Cornelia Bosman. Within two years, he had apparently stopped painting completely, and was a deacon of the Reformed Church. It has been speculated that it was his marriage that brought an end to his art. Whether that’s true or not, for the final thirty years of his life he seems not to have made another painting.

Reference

Wikipedia.

Artists like Rembrandt and Vermeer are exceptional in any period in history. Among the thousands of artists in the Dutch Republic, there were a few dozen who never achieved such greatness, but whose paintings have endured the collapse of the market in the late seventeenth century. Among them is Aelbert Cuyp (1620–1691), who is also a bit of a mystery in that he appears to have stopped painting soon after 1660, although he lived for another thirty years.

Cuyp was born into an artistic family, who were also quite rich. He was taught to paint by his father, Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp, who was primarily a portrait painter, and lived in Dordrecht. Trained as a landscape painter, he often used views as a platform for genre scenes, animal and human portraits, and more, and seems to have been both happy and highly proficient at painting almost anything. During his early career, he was mostly under the influence of the prolific artist Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), but doesn’t appear to have been his pupil.

Cuyp is thought to have painted this Landscape with Cattle when he was only about nineteen, in 1639. It’s set against the background of the city of Dordrecht, situated on the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt river delta. The herdsman and animals in the foreground are engaged in diversions from that landscape: the man is taunting a billy goat, while the cow at the far right is urinating copiously. Above them is a lucent sky with slightly unnatural clouds.

Cuyp was soon using his landscapes with more diverse themes. Orpheus with Animals in a Landscape from about 1640 is one of at least two different paintings he made of this story from mythology. Here he has included a wide range of both domestic and exotic animals and birds, including a distant elephant, an ostrich, herons and wildfowl.

Throughout his career, Cuyp seems to have made detailed sketches in front of the motif, to inform his studio paintings. This View of Arnhem from the South from about 1642-46 was made using grey wash, watercolour and black chalk.

His dramatic Thunderstorm over Dordrecht from about 1645 is amazingly effective and accurate, considering it was painted more than two centuries before anyone saw high-speed photographic images of lightning.

Many of Cuyp’s landscapes show more varied terrain than he could ever have seen in the Republic. Although the cliffs at the right of his Herdsmen with Cows (c 1645) may have been fairly local, the more substantial crags in the left distance are far from being Dutch. It’s not known whether he travelled to other countries, or perhaps relied on the paintings of artists who did.

His paintings of domestic animals also took him indoors, for example in this fascinating painting of Sheep in a Stable from about 1645. The sheep are faithfully depicted, and surrounded by objects suggesting this was more of a still life. In the foreground are empty mussel shells, a couple of earthenware pots, and two wickerwork baskets with some scarlet cloth. He also renders the texture of the fleeces using painterly brushstrokes, particularly that of the standing ram.

View on the Rhine also from about 1645 appears to have been the result of a trip up river into steeper terrain inland. It’s wonderfully painterly, and might even be mistaken for one of Turner’s landscapes from nearly two centuries later.

In the mid-1640s, Cuyp is believed to have come under the influence of Jan Dirksz Both (c 1610-52), who had returned to Utrecht by 1646 following a formative period spent in Rome. When he was in Italy, Both transformed his painting thanks to the work of, and working with, Claude Lorrain. As a result, Cuyp changed the direction of light in his landscapes to elongate shadows and enrich his colour ranges. His father was still alive for much of this period, and it’s thought that in some paintings prior to about 1650, the son painted the landscape and father the figures.

Cuyp continued to make fine studies in front of the motif, such as this View of the Groote Kerk in Dordrecht from the River Maas from about 1647-48, made using a combination of black and brown chalk and watercolour washes. Like the previous study, it sadly wasn’t intended to be seen by the public.

He also painted a few nocturnes, including this view of the Sea by Moonlight from about 1648, where he extends his exploration of the effects of light.

Although Cuyp never seems to have become a more dedicated marine specialist, his paintings of ships including The Passage Boat from about 1650, are landmarks at the height of his career. This ferry was most probably run between Dordrecht and Rotterdam, a distance of little more than twelve miles (20 km) by river. The figures in the boat are finely detailed, including a drummer towards the stern, and the clouds are also finely crafted.

Reference

Wikipedia.

By happy coincidence, while I’m exploring paintings of the Dutch Golden Age, one of its outstanding artists celebrates the four hundredth anniversary of his infant baptism on 20 November 1625: Paulus Potter, who died tragically young in early 1654, but in that short period established himself as a founding father of animal painting.

He was born in Enkhuizen, a busy port in the north of the Dutch Republic, but moved to Leiden and then Amsterdam while still a child. His father was a painter, and young Paulus learned and worked as an apprentice in the family workshop.

He painted God Appearing to Abraham at Sichem in the middle of his apprenticeship, in 1642, making it one of his earliest surviving works. The human figures at the left have some odd proportions indicating his inexperience, but the most striking feature is the magnificent pair of cows stealing the centre. How these cattle came to dominate this painting is a mystery: it’s as if he was told to paint the Biblical story, but lacked interest and decided to liven it up according to his desires.

Once he had completed his apprenticeship he moved to Delft, where he became a member of the Guild of Saint Luke (the painters’ guild) in 1646.

Peasant Family with Animals (1646) appears to be another example of a hijacked motif, of a peasant family with a curiously grotesque young daughter, their cottage, and some wizened trees. Potter has added to that an extensive collection of farm animals, including two cows (one being milked), a calf, and sundry sheep, lambs, and a goat, in a sampler of farm animals.

His Figures with Horses by a Stable from 1647 shows his maturing composition. The farmer and his wife, who is feeding a child at her breast, still have a slight awkwardness about them, but the horses, chickens, dog, and distant cattle are finely painted, as is the magnificent tree in the centre. The sky contains several birds, another consistent feature of his mature works.

He completed his development in his Driving the Cattle to Pasture in the Morning (1647) with a superb dawn sky, providing the warm backlighting to the cattle and barren trees. The farmer’s child has grown, but is still feeding at the breast, as was common at the time. At the far left a pair of pigs are shown in repose.

His first masterpiece, for the next couple of centuries ranked alongside Rembrandt’s finest, is The Bull (also widely known as The Young Bull) (1647), which is almost life-sized, and vivid in its surface details. Originally intended just to be a portrait of the central bull, Potter enlarged the canvas to accommodate (from the left) a ram, lamb, ewe, herdsman, cow, and above them a bird of prey, possibly a buzzard. Beyond them are more cattle in the meadows receding to the church of Rijswijk, between Delft and The Hague. There are also many finer details including a frog in the foreground, textured bark and lichen on the tree, and several flies on the cattle.

A Husbandman with His Herd (1648) is a variation on a similar theme, this time with a lifelike cow-pat in the centre foreground.

In 1649, Potter moved to The Hague, where he married, and worked until 1652. His wife’s family were well-connected and provided entry to the upper class. At this time he apparently painted a work showing a cow pissing that was bought with glee by Amalia of Solms-Braunfels, Princess of Orange by marriage.

His Two Pigs in a Sty (1649) shows two hairy pigs at rest inside. Many of the older breeds of pig were hairier than modern varieties, and Potter has painted their coats realistically, as well as skilfully lighting the face of the sow sat on her haunches.

Two Horses near a Gate in the Meadow (1649) shows that Potter still had some room for improvement in his equine works: the head of the horse in the centre has some slightly peculiar proportions.

The Bear Hunt (1649) is another large canvas, showing a swarthy man armed with a scimitar, his hounds, and others attacking two Eurasian brown bears. Although the bear had become extinct through hunting in the British Isles by about 1000 CE, it may still have been rarely encountered in the Netherlands in Potter’s day. His first-hand knowledge of the animal appears limited, though, as their body proportions are quite different to those shown here.

Orpheus and Animals (1650) is one of Potter’s most unusual paintings, showing a wide range of different species, some of which weren’t well-known then, and one of which (the unicorn) didn’t even exist. They include a Bactrian camel (two humps), donkey, cattle, ox, wild pig, sheep, dog, goat, rabbit, lions, dromedary (one hump), horse, elephant, snake, deer, unicorn, lizard, wolf, and monkey.

In 1652, Potter moved to Amsterdam.

Cattle in the Meadow (1652) develops the effects of light together with the early autumn season almost to the point of being impressionist in its use of colour. In addition to the cattle, the painting is enhanced with a sow and her piglets in the right foreground, and exuberant lichen growth on the split tree-trunk by them.

Resting Herd (1652) shows another variation of his standard composition for cattle.

His Cows Grazing at a Farm (1653) was one of his last paintings, and apart from its meticulous detail, its rich lighting effects might have been more typical of Corot two hundred years later.

In 1654, when Paulus Potter was still in Amsterdam, he died from tuberculosis at the age of only 28. In his tragically brief career, he had painted over a hundred oil paintings, most of which survive today. His faithful depictions of farm animals set the standard for art for the next couple of centuries, and were inspiration to Constant Troyon and others who painted animals.

It happened that the Dutch Golden Age coincided with some of the coldest years during the Little Ice Age. In the previous century, the pioneering Flemish landscape painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder recorded the snow and ice during those exceptionally cold winters.

Brueghel’s masterpiece Winter Landscape with Skaters and Bird Trap from 1565 is one of the first paintings to show Netherlandish people on the ice in the winter. Although a few similarly wintry views were painted in and around Antwerp, they didn’t really catch on until the middle of the following century. Among their earliest exponents in the Dutch Republic was Hendrick Avercamp, who was born in Amsterdam but painted for most of his career in Kampen, to the north-east, and was probably the first to specialise in winter landscapes.

Avercamp’s Winter Landscape with Skaters is seen in his 1608 version above, and from around 1630 below. The whole population seems to have spilled out from the warmth of buildings to take to the ice. The fashionable parade in their best clothes and company, children play, and the occasional less able skater ends up sitting on the ice.

His Winter Scene on a Canal from about 1615 is even richer in detail. In the right of the painting are two tents with flags flying. These are popular koek-en-zopie, literally ‘cake and eggnog’ cafés, selling handheld snacks like cake and pancakes, together with alcoholic drinks such as beer laced with home-made rum.

Avercamp’s Kolf Players on Ice from 1625 features another common sight, the game of kolf, an ancestor of modern golf that became popular in the Netherlands during the thirteenth century, and has all but vanished today. Although also played indoors, it was played widely on frozen bodies of water during these cold winters. This involved striking a ball around a simple course with a club, with the aim of reaching the opponents’ starting point first. In this painting, the player about to strike their ball might be aiming for the post being held in the distance.

Adriaen van de Venne’s early painting of The Winter from 1614 shows two ice yachts under full sail, and dense crowds in the distance.

Although Aelbert Cuyp doesn’t appear to have painted many of these, his Ice Scene Before the Huis te Merwede near Dordrecht from about 1655 is among the finest. Notable here are his foreground reflections on the mirror-like surface, and the wonderful sky with its warm clouds. The castle seen here was built to the south-east of Dordrecht in the early fourteenth century, and ruined a hundred years later.

Skating on the ice using long curved blades of wood or metal, seen on the shoes of the man in the left foreground, was also popular. Younger adults made it a sport, and there were long-distance races.

Aert van der Neer’s beautifully-lit Sports on a Frozen River (c 1660) includes several kolf players. The reflection of the low sun on the ice is particularly well shown here, giving the ice a polished sheen.

Van der Neer was another specialist in painting these views. These contrasting Winter Landscapes show his command of light and skies in his mature works. That above dates from about 1660, and that below from about 1665-70.

Adriaen van de Velde’s Kolf Players on the Ice near Haarlem (1668) affords a closer view of a game in progress, with a koek-en-zopie tent in the distance, ready to warm the players up.

Painting in the Golden Age didn’t occur in isolation, but was greatly influenced by artists of Flanders and Brabant to the south, many of whom visited or migrated to the Dutch Republic. Some Dutch artists effectively exported their landscape and other skills to Italy, where there was a group of emigrés known as the Bentvueghels (meaning birds of a feather) between about 1620-1710.

From the late 1590s until well into the following century, the distinctive style of Caravaggio (1571-1610) drew followers across Europe, most of whom saw his paintings when they were training in Italy. This wave of Caravaggism spread when those painters returned to their native lands, including the states of the Dutch Republic.

Caravaggio’s style was by no means unique, and his use of chiaroscuro had been anticipated a century earlier in this wonderful nocturne by the early Netherlandish painter Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Nativity at Night, thought to be from about 1490. Chiaroscuro makes narrative sense here, and results in a scene of great tenderness and reverence, thanks to its soft transitions of tones.

Caravaggio’s third painting of Salome Receives the Head of John the Baptist was completed in about 1609-10, shortly before his death, and illustrates his style at its height.

Artemisia Gentileschi’s father was a well-known Caravaggist, and she followed suit for the early years of her career. Her painting of Judith Slaying Holofernes followed a decade later in 1620-21. Over that period, Hendrick ter Brugghen, Gerrit van Honthorst, Dirck van Baburen and Jan van Bijlert became influenced when in Italy, and returned to Utrecht, where they have become known as the Utrecht Caravaggists.

Van Honthorst’s The Soldier and the Girl from about 1621 is a good example, where the young woman is lighting her candle from a burning coal.

Van Honthorst’s dimly lit indoor scenes are associated with pleasures, often fairly sinful ones, as in his Merry Company from 1623. He shows here how directional lighting can transform appearance, turning quite ordinary or ugly faces into caricatures.

As music was breaking out of seedy dens of iniquity into mainstream culture, learning to play an instrument and playing to others became fashionable, as shown in van Honthorst’s merry Concert on a Balcony from 1624.

During the 1620s his paintings became more narrative and less Caravaggist, as seen in his Solon and Croesus from 1624. This shows the elderly Greek statesman getting a hostile reception from Croesus, with his court laughing at his responses. Included are two slaves supplicating themselves before the king, in an interesting condemnation of slavery for its time.

Some more mainstream artists also showed Caravaggist tendencies.

Rembrandt’s very early painting of The Operation from 1624-25 shows a barber-surgeon and his assistant performing surgery on the side of a man’s head, by the light of a commonplace candle on a candlestick holder.

Hendrick ter Brugghen’s religious narrative of Jacob Reproaching Laban for Giving him Leah in Place of Rachel is from the later years of Caravaggism, in 1627.

Although remarkably little is known of the paintings of Judith Leyster, she appears to have been influenced when painting in Haarlem.

Like most of her surviving paintings, A Game of Tric-Trac was made before her marriage to Jan Miense Molenaer, in this case in 1630.

Although Rembrandt’s use of chiaroscuro is best known from his later paintings, Saint Peter in Prison (The Apostle Peter Kneeling) dates from 1631.

Later interiors and genre works show the more lasting influence imported from Italy.

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A glance at a map of the Dutch Republic during its Golden Age reveals that very little was far from the sea, or one of the large rivers that flow through its countryside and cities. In the middle was the Zuiderzee, a large inland sea only kept at bay by a great many dikes.

With the popularity of landscape painting, it was inevitable that the sea, rivers and other bodies of water became a common feature in those views. This article shows a small selection from some of the most famous artists of the time.

Jan van Goyen’s View of Dordrecht with the Grote Kirk Across the Maas (1644) shows a familiar view of the city, with particular interest in its buildings. Its skyline is dominated by the still-unfinished 65 metre tower of the Grote Kerk, built between 1285-1470. There are many small boats at work on the choppy water, here depicted in an older fashion similar to works from the Renaissance.

Aelbert Cuyp’s View on the Rhine from the following year appears to have been the result of a trip up river, into steeper terrain inland. It is wonderfully sketchy, and might even be mistaken for one of Turner’s landscapes from nearly two centuries later. In the Netherlands, the lower reaches of this river form part of the great Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, which includes both the major port and city of Rotterdam, and Dordrecht.

Inevitably, many of Cuyp’s finest landscapes show his home city, such as this View of the Maas at Dordrecht from about 1645-46. This makes best use of an extreme panoramic panel, now commonly used for such marine landscapes.

Cuyp also painted a few marine nocturnes, including this view of the Sea by Moonlight from about 1648, where he extended his exploration of the effects of light.

Philip de Koninck’s Wide River Landscape from about 1648-49 refers to a wide landscape rather than river, I believe. All seems at peace in the countryside, with livestock in the field in the foreground, and a small boat making its way under sail along the river.

Although Cuyp never seems to have become a more dedicated marine specialist, his paintings of ships including The Passage Boat from about 1650, are landmarks at the height of his career. Passage boats were those engaged in regular ferry trips between set ports, in this case probably Dordrecht and Rotterdam, a distance of little more than twelve miles (20 km) by water. With the Republic’s extensive networks of rivers and canals, these were a popular means of transport at the time. The figures in the boat are finely detailed, and include a drummer towards the stern.

At their best, Cuyp’s coastal landscapes, such as The Maas at Dordrecht from about 1650, are full of rich light, earning him the title of the Dutch Claude Lorrain. This shows another passage boat packed with passengers, together with its drummer.

Salomon van Ruysdael’s View of Alkmaar from the Sea (c 1650) is unusual in showing such a flat coastal landscape on a panel orientated not in landscape mode, but in portrait to include its fine cloudscape.

Cuyp’s grand view of The Valkhof at Nijmegen from about 1652-54 shows the Imperial castle that was to be demolished in 1798, on its small hill beside the river. The landscape is bathed in golden light, and broken clouds are tinged with similar Claudean colour as they drift through its lucent sky.

Jacob van Ruisdael’s The Shore at Egmond-aan-Zee from about 1675 was painted to the west of Alkmaar, on the North Sea coast in North Holland, with its stormier weather.

De Koninck’s River Landscape from the following year shows a single oarsman taking a small group of people along the river.

Many of de Koninck’s panoramas are painted on panels or canvases of normal proportions, and just look wide. Flat Landscape With a Broad River is more unusual for his use of a proper marine format. It also appears more sketchy, and has little staffage, as if it may even have been painted in front of the motif.

Of the several hundred landscape painters of the Dutch Golden Age, the best-known and most influential is Jacob van Ruisdael, whose paintings were described by Vincent van Gogh as “sublime”. Van Ruisdael was starting his career just as Nicolas Poussin was reaching his zenith in Rome, and the two were major influences on all subsequent landscape artists, particularly Thomas Gainsborough, John Constable and JMW Turner.

Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael (1628/9-1682) was born in Haarlem into a family of painters. Presumably apprenticed within the family workshop, he was admitted to the local Guild of Saint Luke in 1648, and from the outset appears to have specialised in landscape painting.

Van Ruisdael’s earliest landscapes contained trees, as they would at a time when trees and woods were more extensive in their coverage across the whole of Europe. The view in Landscape with a Church (c 1645) looks familiar, as its composition was used by Gainsborough, Constable, and many other later artists. Prominent at the left, and forming repoussoir, is the hulk of an old tree, younger branches sprouting from the remains, a recurrent theme in Gainsborough as well as van Ruisdael. A recession in depth on the right leads to the brighter-lit church in the middle distance.

The trees here are painstakingly constructed from the anatomy of their branches, with leaves painted individually in the foreground, but delicately en masse in the further distance. Bark colour, texture, and rich lichen growth are also shown in fine detail.

Van Ruisdael soon showed a deep understanding of the stages in the life and looks of oak trees. In Road through an Oak Forest (c 1646-7) he captures the later life of a stag-headed oak, that long ago lost its crown, on the left, a flush of new growth on a fallen trunk, and another still clinging onto life despite a great split at its base.

Judging from the girth of their trunks, the oak trees shown here are around 400 years old, making it likely that they were saplings in the thirteenth century, possibly even earlier. They form a remarkable window back in time to the late Middle Ages.

Some of van Ruisdael’s sketches and drawings have also survived, among them Landscape with a Stone Bridge (c 1647). This shows his development of foliage from branch structure quite clearly, and the fact that he didn’t block in that foliage, preferring gestural squiggles and other marks.

Van Ruisdael was a faithful observer of the different species of tree and their forms, as shown in his timeless A Wooded Landscape with a Pond from about 1648. He has maintained careful, anatomical construction even in the prominent tree at the centre right, in the middle distance, and the canopies appear light and leafy.

Gentle rural decay is shown not only in the ruined buildings in Landscape with a Mill-run and Ruins (c 1653), but also in the stag-head tree in the centre of the painting.

He moved to Amsterdam in 1657, to take advantage of its growing prosperity. He appears to have travelled little, remaining within the European lowlands and venturing only just over the border into Germany. His only known student was Meindert Hobbema, who became an accomplished landscape painter who also depicted trees as important elements within his works.

Probably painted soon after he had moved to Amsterdam, The Great Forest (c 1655-60) shows travellers along a track passing at the edge of an ancient woodland, with an assortment of trees in various states of advancing age, including some reduced to stag-heads.

The upland landscape shown in The Forest Stream (c 1660) was clearly not one that van Ruisdael had ever seen, but must have been composed from studying the paintings of others, and talking to those more widely travelled. His trees remain much as before, with a gnarled and twisted stag-head at the right, and at the left a near-dead trunk poised in slow-motion collapse into the stream.

Although most of van Ruisdael’s paintings are in full daylight, as with his contemporaries he also explored more transient light effects, in A Marsh in a Forest at Dusk (c 1660). Now the ancient trees launching themselves out from the bank at the right have engaged with those growing in the marsh. The effect of the late dusk light on their canopies is spectacular, as are the thin banks of cloud above, lit by the setting sun. His careful leaf-by-leaf depiction of canopies of different tree species generates distinct and life-like textures.

In Landscape with Waterfall (c 1660-70), van Ruisdael revisited the distant church framed by nearer trees theme of Landscape with a Church above. Perhaps this time the church is a little too far away, though still an inspiration to Constable and Gainsborough. At the right a birch collapses off the edge, and there is a pair of ancient wizened oaks filling the centre.

He continued to develop the theme of old oaks and water in Oaks at a Lake with Water Lilies in about 1665. Again a dying ancient hulk stands like a prow from the bank at the left, and he shows bright flowers on the water-lilies.

Many of his woods are either unpopulated, or the few people providing staffage are barely visible against their surroundings. His undated A Road through an Oak Wood is different, with a couple of travellers on its road, and woodland activities of clearing and burning at the left.

The Golden Age was primarily based on prosperity from trade, not home production, but increasing demand from the affluent cities led to greater timber production, particularly for ships and buildings, and the clearing of woods to augment farmland.

My final selection is perhaps his most detailed essay on the effects of advanced age on trees, Three Great Trees in a Mountainous Landscape with a River (c 1665-70). Although the mountains are borrowed or imaginary, the three trees of the title seem almost impossibly intertwined. The nearest is struggling to survive, remains of its former glory resting, limbs in the air, at its foot.

When the Dutch economy collapsed in 1672, he appears to have remained relatively prosperous, and continued to work in Amsterdam until his death a decade later, in 1682.

References

Wikipedia
Slive, S (2005) Jacob van Ruisdael: Master of Landscape, Royal Academy of Arts, London. ISBN 978 1 903973 24 0.
Ashton, PS, Davies, AI & Slive, S (1982). “Jacob van Ruisdael’s trees”. Arnoldia 42 (1): 2–31; available from JSTOR.

At the height of his career, Johannes Vermeer’s paintings seem to have secured good prices, thanks to an affluent collector in Delft. They also appear to have been a significant influence on others, including Gabriël Metsu.

Music features in several of Vermeer’s paintings, in The Concert (c 1663-66) more particularly than any other. Two ladies are making music, one playing a decorated harpsichord (or similar), the other singing. In the left foreground is a cello resting on its back. Tragically, on 18 March 1990 this and a dozen other works were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, MA, and it remains unrecovered.

Soft edges are obvious in Vermeer’s renowned portrait of a Girl with a Pearl Earring, from about 1664-67. Seen even closer up in the detail below it’s obvious that he has softened most of its edges to some degree, even on highlights such as the white reflections on the pearl itself and the girl’s eyes.

His Mistress and Maid from about 1664-67 also has many soft edges, particularly those of the maid in the left distance, whose head and forearms are blurry. The crispest edges are those of the mistress’s forearms, particularly the left as it crosses her clothing. These also appear consistent with depth of field effect.

Vermeer painted at least two works showing women writing, of which the earlier is A Lady Writing a Letter from 1665-1666. The fur trimmings on her golden jacket confirm this is no country bumpkin, but the lady of an affluent and well-educated house. Rather than looking down at her quill, she stares the viewer out, her faint smile of confidence lit by sunlight coming through the window off to the left.

In Vermeer’s late The Art of Painting from about 1666-68, greatest sharpness is again slightly away from the geometrical centre of the canvas, in the woman holding a wind instrument, as shown in the detail below. The high tonal contrast between the marble tiles on the floor is softened in the foreground, and sharpens as they recede deeper into the picture, as would be expected in depth of field.

They also appear in Vermeer’s late painting of The Astronomer, from about 1668. He is studying his celestial sphere marked with the symbols of the constellations.

In The Geographer, visibly dated the following year, the figure holds a pair of dividers over an unidentifiable chart, with a fine globe tucked away behind and above him.

While there are some instances where Vermeer’s blurring could be consistent with motion, most of these paintings appear to show depth of field effects as might be observed through a lens with a shallow depth. They could also be consistent with his use of an edge hierarchy for compositional emphasis.

Recently, several attempts have been made to explain how Vermeer came to use blurring so successfully. One story that has gained some traction is that he used optical devices such as a camera obscura to lay out the forms within each of these scenes, a theory that has been repeatedly claimed by David Hockney among others. Most recently, though, it was realised that alone was insufficient to explain all the optical phenomena modelled so well in these paintings, and it has been proposed by Hockney and Tim Jenison that the artist coupled a concave mirror with another mirror, a system that took Jenison five years to develop and test.

It’s perhaps unsurprising that there’s no evidence whatsoever that Vermeer possessed or used a camera obscura or other optical device, although he was a close friend of the pioneer lens maker Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, at a time when there was considerable interest in optics.

Johannes Vermeer died in 1675, as the Dutch Golden Age was drawing to an end, and the market for paintings collapsed.

References

Vermeer’s popularity in the last century has ensured extensive supporting material. The following is a small selection of what I think is the very best.

Essential Vermeer, Jonathan Janson’s superb site

Gaskell I and Jonker M eds (1998) Vermeer Studies, Yale UP. ISBN 0 300 07521 9.
Liedtke W (2008) Vermeer, the Complete Paintings, Ludion/Harry N Abrams. ISBN 978 90 5544 742 8.
Liedtke W (2009) The Milkmaid by Johannes Vermeer, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. ISBN 978 1 58839 344 9. (Available for download from here.)
Wheelock Jr AK (1997) Vermeer, the Complete Works, Abrams. ISBN 978 0 8109 2751 3.

Alain Jaubert, Palettes DVD: Le siècle d’or des Pays-Bas, Le grain de la lumière, Editions Montparnasse.
Tracy Chevalier’s fictional Girl with a Pearl Earring (1999) is also available as a movie under the same title (2003).

During his career in Delft, Johannes Vermeer had been respected as an artist, but soon after his death at the end of the Dutch Golden Age he slipped quietly into obscurity, alongside many hundreds of others. A few connoisseurs maintained an interest in his work, but it wasn’t until the middle of the nineteenth century that he was rediscovered. Since then his few remaining paintings have become among the most revered in the European canon.

Vermeer was born in the city of Delft in 1632, where he took over his father’s business as a dealer in paintings. He also trained as a painter, and at the end of 1653 was admitted to the city’s Guild of Saint Luke. The following year Delft was struck by a catastrophic explosion in a gunpowder store, destroying a large section of the city and its occupants.

Vermeer’s Christ in the House of Martha and Mary is his largest surviving painting, and probably one of his earliest, dating from about 1654-56. It’s unusual among them for its religious theme.

By about 1657-58, when he painted Officer and Laughing Girl, he had found form in the compositional approach for which he is most famous. Figures going about their everyday lives are seen in the daylight cast from windows on the left. The map depicted so meticulously has been identified as that made of Holland and West Friesland by Willem Blaeu and Balthasar Florisz van Berckenrode. Unfortunately, no other complete copy of that map has survived, but its second edition was published by Blaeu in 1621, and that’s believed to be on display here, as shown in the detail below.

Some of these paintings feature heavy curtains in the foreground, drawn back to reveal Vermeer’s subject behind. Among those is his Girl reading a Letter at an Open Window (c 1658), where its railed curtain gives an air of intimacy, suggesting the viewer is peeping past the curtain and gazing in at real and private life.

The Milkmaid, probably from about 1658-59, is perhaps Vermeer’s first true masterpiece, and introduces the optical effects for which he is now best-known.

A milkmaid is pouring milk from a jug, beside a tabletop with bread. In the left foreground the bread and pots rest on a folded Dutch octagonal table, covered with a mid-blue cloth. A wicker basket of bread is nearest the viewer, broken and smaller pieces of different types of bread behind and towards the woman, in the centre. Behind the bread is a dark blue studded mug with pewter lid, and just in front of the woman (to the right of the mug) a brown earthenware ‘Dutch oven’ pot into which the milk is being poured. An ultramarine blue cloth (matching the woman’s apron) rests at the edge of the table.

The woman, seen in three-quarter view, wears working dress: a stiff, white linen cap, a yellow jacket laced at the front, a brilliant ultramarine blue apron, and a dull red skirt underneath. Her right hand holds the handle of a brown earthenware pitcher, which she supports from below with her left hand. Her work sleeves are pushed up to lay both her weathered forearms bare to the elbow. Her strong-featured face and eyes are cast down, watching the milk as it runs into the pot.

More remarkable still is the visible blurring.

Edges and detail are sharpest around her left shoulder and upper arm, and soften as you look away towards her hands and the pitcher. Highlights on that pitcher and the pot below it are also decidedly blurry, suggesting this is intended as a depth of field effect.

Bread and other objects on the table in front of the woman also show controlled use of blurring, most obviously in the highlights on the wicker basket.

At some time around 1660, Vermeer painted a couple of cityscapes that are his only surviving non-figurative paintings.

Above is his view of a street and its occupants in The Little Street, and below is his View of Delft waterfront. A third cityscape of a House Standing in Delft has been recorded but is now apparently lost.

His Woman Holding a Balance from around 1662-64 shows a young woman who is pregnant holding an empty balance in front of a collection of pearls and gold. Its focus is noticeably softer than his earlier paintings. The edges of the tabletop in the centre of the canvas and the woman’s left hand are the crispest, and those further from that are softer, as would be consistent with depth of field effects.

Similar effects are seen in Vermeer’s better-lit Young Woman with a Water Pitcher from the same period. Here the central focus is in the upper chest of the figure, where the edge between the split in her white mantle and the underlying deep ultramarine clothing is crispest, and the reflections on the pitcher and bowl are blurry, again consistent with depth of field. So too is the window, which could indicate motion.

Amazingly, this painting was bought by Henry Gurdon Marquand in 1887 for a mere $800, and became the first of Vermeer’s paintings to enter an American collection.

Patronage is bad for art, particularly for paintings. Whether they come in the form of commissions for churches or by the powerful and wealthy, paintings to please others are inevitably constrained by what those others want to see. Until the seventeenth century, there were remarkably few depictions of ordinary, everyday people. Then, at about the same time, that changed in paintings by the likes of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682) in Spain, and the Brueghel family and David Teniers the Younger (1610–1690) in Brabant to the south of the Dutch Republic. In the Dutch Golden Age such paintings rose to popularity, and must have graced the walls of many Dutch homes. This article looks at a small selection of those that have survived.

Portraits of women washing linen first became popular in Dutch and Flemish ‘cabinet’ paintings, such as Gabriël Metsu’s Washerwoman (c 1650), along with other scenes of household and similar activities. This painting appears authentic and almost socially realist: the young woman appears to be a servant, dressed in her working clothes, with only her forearms bare, and her head covered. She’s in the dark and dingy lower levels of the house, and hanging up by her tub is a large earthenware vessel used to draw water. She looks tired, her eyes staring blankly at the viewer.

Metsu’s Kitchen Maid from 1656 is preparing a trussed-up chicken to be roasted on a metal skewer over an open fire. Behind her, hanging from a hook, is a small furry mammal probably intended to be a rabbit, although it worryingly looks more like a very large cat. Below it in the otherwise empty fireplace is a bowl of what look like potatoes.

Metsu followed his subjects beyond the home, here into The Vegetable Market in Amsterdam in about 1660-61. The mistress stands with a metal pail on her arm, detached from the housekeeper to the left of centre, who is bargaining with one of the vendors. Other figures are drawn from a broad range of classes, and there’s produce ranging from cauliflowers to chickens.

His Woman Selling Herring (c 1661-62) is going from door to door with her fish, here trying to convince an old woman standing with a stick at the door of her dilapidated cottage.

Out in the country, Metsu finds The Pancake Baker with a Boy (1655-58), again with fascinating detail. The cook in her roadside tent offers an impressive menu, with fish being supervised by a watchful cat, pancakes cooked to order from the batter in the earthenware pot by the woman’s left leg, and a few apples. Her trade seems to extend to shellfish too, with what appears to be a lobster peering from a wickerwork basket on the table, and a couple of empty mussel shells underneath it. This is the Dutch equivalent of the Spanish bodegone, popular in the earlier years of the century, and successfully painted by Velázquez early in his career.

Several of Vermeer’s masterpieces depict ordinary people in everyday life, among them his Milkmaid from about 1658-1661.

A maid is pouring milk from a jug, beside a tabletop with bread. In the left foreground the bread and pots rest on a folded Dutch octagonal table, covered with a mid-blue cloth. A wicker basket of bread is nearest the viewer, broken and smaller pieces of different types of bread behind and towards the woman, in the centre. Behind the bread is a dark blue studded mug with pewter lid, and just in front of the woman a brown earthenware ‘Dutch oven’ pot into which she is pouring milk.

Figures in the animal paintings of Paulus Potter and Gerard ter Borch were also thoroughly ordinary.

Paulus Potter’s Peasant Family with Animals (1646) shows a family with a curiously grotesque young daughter, their cottage, and some wizened trees.

Potter was reticent about showing milkmaids, though. In his Cows Grazing at a Farm, painted in 1653, the year before his early death, the milkmaid is almost hidden by the cow’s hindquarters.

Gerard ter Borch was prepared to put the milkmaid and her cow at the centre of this painting, A Maid Milking a Cow in a Barn from about 1652-54. As was universal at the time, milk was collected in a wooden bucket.

Isaac Koedijck is a bit more unusual in his Surgeon Tending a Peasant’s Foot (1649-50), with its wooden spiral staircase and collection of weapons and tools mounted high on the wall.

It’s easy to mistake Pieter de Hooch’s A Woman Drinking with Two Men from about 1658 for a Vermeer, and like the latter he decorates the far wall with a contemporary map. The Eighty Years’ War had not long ended, and the Dutch Republic was flourishing. Discarded objects are scattered on its black-and-white tiled floor. There’s a large and empty fireplace, and above it hangs a religious painting.

Finally, Gabriel Metsu’s Old Drinker (c 1650-67) is dressed in clothes almost as old as he is, and clutches a clay tobacco pipe in his right hand, and a pewter drinking tankard with his left.

How many of those paintings would have been commissioned by a patron?

Before the Dutch Golden Age, paintings of everyday life, now widely termed genre paintings, were seldom seen. That changed in the Dutch Republic, when they became among the most popular, if not the majority. Several of the best known artists of this period specialised in them, among them Gerard ter Borch (1617–1681) who made himself something of an international career as a result.

Ter Borch was born in the city of Zwolle, well to the east of Amsterdam. As his father was also an artist with the same name, he’s sometimes distinguished as Gerard ter Borch the Younger. He had already started to travel in 1632, when he was training in Amsterdam, and for the next twenty years or so he painted in England, Germany, France, Spain and Italy.

For the thirty years between 1618-1648, central Europe had been engulfed in a bitter war between the Habsburg states, including the Holy Roman Empire and Spain, and their enemies, including the Dutch Republic. Ter Borch’s magnificent painting of The Ratification of the Treaty of Münster, 15 May 1648 (1648) recorded the moment that the Thirty Years War ended, with the ratification of this treaty between the Dutch Republic and Spain. It also marked the birth of the Dutch Republic as an independent country.

The artist even seized the opportunity to include himself among the ranks of dignitaries: he is at the far left, with long hair and looking directly at the viewer. Although this may look a large and grand work, ter Borch painted it on copper, and it is little larger than a miniature.

But most of his surviving works are portraits and interior scenes of everyday life.

The Messenger, popularly know as Unwelcome News, from 1653, develops what came to be one of his favourite themes. The young man at the left is still booted and spurred from riding to deliver a message to this couple. Slung over his shoulder is a trumpet, to announce his arrival and importance. The recipient wears a shiny breastplate and riding boots, and is taken aback at the news. His wife leans on her husband’s thigh, her face looking serious.

The scene is the front room of a house in the Golden Age. Behind them is a traditional bed (typical in living areas at the time), with some of their possessions resting on a table between the couple and their bed. Hanging up on a bedpost is the husband’s sword, and behind them is a gun and powder horn. Is the letter news of his recall to military service, perhaps? Will he soon have to ride away from his wife, leaving her to bring up their family?

At about the same time, ter Borch painted A Maid Milking a Cow in a Barn (c 1652-54), incorporating its own still life of everyday farming objects including a winnowing sieve and an axe.

Mother Combing the Hair of Her Child (c 1652-53) shows a regular domestic routine, expressed more bluntly in its alternative title of Hunting for Lice. The mother is looking intently at her young daughter’s hair for traces of lice and nits, and running a fine-tooth comb through it to remove any.

Three Figures Conversing in an Interior (c 1653-55) is another of his narrative genre works, and more popularly known as Paternal Admonition. Standing with her back to us, wearing a plush going-out dress, is the daughter. To her left is a table, on which there is a small reading stand with books, almost certainly including a Bible. Her parents are young, and they too are fashionably dressed. Her mother appears to be drinking from a glass, but her father is at the very least cautioning his daughter, if not giving her a thorough dressing-down. He wears a sword at his side. Behind them is a large bed, and to the right the family dog looks on from the gloom.

Ter Borch’s half-sister Gesina, herself a painter, appears to have been his model for Woman Writing a Letter (c 1655), which makes obvious his connection with Vermeer. Move this woman to a desk lit through windows at the left, light her surroundings, and you have a painting very similar to some of Vermeer’s. This painting shows a heavy decorated table cover pushed back to make room for the quill, inkpot, and letter. Behind the woman is her bed, surrounded by heavy drapery, and at the lower right is the brilliant red flash of the seat.

The Spinner is dated to about 1655, but may well have been the pendant to Mother Combing the Hair of Her Child (c 1652-53), and uses the same model. Here she looks intently at her work, a small dog on her lap.

Long before its value in preventing scurvy was realised in 1747, or it was carbonated even later, still cloudy lemonade had become a popular soft drink. Extensive trade links of the Dutch Republic made this drink available to the middle classes, as celebrated in ter Borch’s The Glass of Lemonade (1655-60).

A fashionably-dressed young man is helping to prepare a glass of lemonade for a young woman, who is equally open about her love of fashionable clothing. Behind her is the woman’s nurse or maid, who is having to comfort her through the excitement of the experience. They’re surrounded by a contemporary Dutch interior, with the inevitable bed lurking in the dark at the right, a small but heavily-built wooden table to the right, and a lighter-weight table at the lower left.

The Letter from about 1660-62 returns to his favourite theme of the reading and writing of letters. Two young women are working together, apparently to write a reply to the letter which is being read by the woman on the right. A boy, perhaps their younger brother, has just brought in a tray bearing an ornate pitcher of drink. In front, a small dog is curled up asleep on a stool.

Ter Borch’s backgrounds become lighter in his later work, as shown in The Music Lesson from about 1668. A teacher stands over a young woman, who is learning to play the lute. By this time, the basic lute had become extended to accommodate additional strings for a wider register. This is often referred to as a theorbo, although in modern terminology it’s probably more of an archlute, and seems to have been fashionable in the Dutch Republic at this time. Resting on the table is a cello, and asleep on a chair is a small dog. Note that the room still contains a bed in the background.

Just as mothers had to check their children for parasites in the hair, so pet owners had to remove fleas from their pets. Ter Borch’s late painting of A Boy with his Dog, also known as The Flea-Catcher (after 1666), shows this, in fairly barren surroundings.

As organised occupational groups, guilds have ancient origins, and in Roman times were known as collegia. Although they were an important part of Renaissance society, few if any appear to have commissioned group portraits, which were largely confined to families at that time. This changed in the Dutch Golden Age, and some of its best-known paintings depict occupational and other groups.

In 1617, Michiel van Mierevelt and his son Pieter, specialists in portraiture, painted The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Willem van der Meer, one of the earliest portraits of a social group from the Dutch Golden Age. Members of this group are all ignoring the cadaver in front of them, preferring to look at the painter, and are thought to be members of the Surgeons’ Guild of the city of Delft, who commissioned this work.

Rembrandt painted his Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp in 1632, as an early commission soon after his arrival in Amsterdam. It’s a group portrait of distinguished members of the Surgeons’ Guild in their working environment. Most remarkable is the fact that its principal, Dr Tulp, and most of his colleagues aren’t looking at the dissected forearm.

As cities developed in the Dutch Republic, guilds and associations flourished. This wasn’t a period of peace, and most towns and cities required adult males to be members of the local civic militia or schutterij for mutual defence. These were operated using the guild model, with local men appointed to military rank for their command. Their roles included helping defend the town or city in the event of attack or revolt, and manning a night watch, in which members took turns to patrol the streets.

One of the earlier of these group portraits is Frans Hals’ Banquet of the Officers of the Calivermen Civic Guard from 1627. Contemporary records have enabled their identification as (from the left) Willem Claesz. Vooght, Johan Damius, Willem Warmont, Johan Schatter, Gilles de Wildt, Nicolaes van Napels, Outgert Akersloot, Matthijs Haeswindius, Adriaen Matham, Lot Schout, Pieter Ramp, and Willem Ruychaver at the right.

The cost of these group portraits was relatively modest, as it was normally shared between those depicted. In most cases shares weren’t equal, but determined by the member’s rank in the organisation.

Hendrik Gerritsz Pot used the novel technique of putting indigo layers over underpainting, without the protection of glazes, in his Portrait of the St Adrian Civic Guard, Haarlem from 1630. As a result of fading of the indigo, what were originally bright blue sashes have become almost white, as shown in the detail below.

Frans Hals’ Officers and Sergeants of the St Adrian Civic Guard (1633) not only shows the same group of men, but has suffered exactly the same fate with their formerly blue sashes.

Hals’ Militia Company of District XI under the Command of Captain Reynier Reael (1633-37) shows a group known as the Meagre Company. He was commissioned to paint this in 1633, but three years later it remained unfinished, and the commission was transferred to Codde to complete the right side of the canvas and many of the hands and faces a year later.

Painted a decade later, Rembrandt’s vast group portrait of The Night Watch (1642) is perhaps the most famous of them all, although it’s more correctly titled Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq. It features the commander and seventeen members of his civic guard company in Amsterdam, and took the artist three years to complete from his first commission to paint this for display in the great hall of the guards.

Captain Frans Banninck Cocq (in black with a red sash), followed by his lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch (in yellow with a white sash) are leading out this militia company, their colours borne by the ensign Jan Visscher Cornelissen. The small girl to the left of them is carrying a dead chicken as a symbol of arquebusiers, the type of weapon several are carrying (detail below).

Some of these militia group portraits commemorated events of greater significance than social occasions. On 15 May 1648, peace between Philip IV of Spain and the Lords States General of the Dutch Republic was finally ratified to end the Eighty Years’ War, and on 18 June this was marked by The Celebration of the Peace of Münster, 18 June 1648, in the Headquarters of the Crossbowmen’s Civic Guard (St George Guard), Amsterdam, painted here by Bartholomeus van der Helst with Jan Vos.

At the right with a silver horn is Captain Cornelis Jansz. Witsen, who is shaking the hand of Lieutenant Johan Oetgens van Waveren. In the centre, seated behind the drum with a flag draped over him, is Reserve Officer Candidate Jacob Banning, and around him are Sergeants Dirck Claesz. Thoveling and Thomas Hartog.

Neighbourhood and welfare organisations also flourished, and the latter distributed money, food, clothes and fuel to the poor. These were run by the middle classes, who formed themselves into regents for the purpose of their administration.

Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck’s Regentesses of the St. Elisabeth’s Hospital (1641) shows the group of august ladies who oversaw that charitable foundation in Haarlem. Time has shown that they too were victims of fugitive pigment, as their tablecloth was originally a rich green. Its unprotected indigo blue has faded from much of its surface, leaving most of it an odd yellow ochre hue.

The gentlemen shown in Frans Hals’ group portrait of the Regents of the Old Men’s Alms House, Haarlem from 1664 were responsible for running the alms house for poor elderly men in the city of Haarlem.