Dutch Golden Age

Officer Paying a Woman in a Stable is a 1670 scene of an encounter between a traveler and a country inn host painted by Pieter de Hooch. The Dutch artist’s attention to the incidental details are notable, such as the dog investigating the transaction, the servant gathering the hay for the officer’s journey and the […]

Youth Making a Face by Adriaen Brouwer, a noted portrait specialist during the Dutch Golden Age, paints a boy making a teasing face towards the viewer. These studies in exaggerated facial expressions were called tronies (from the French ‘trogne’ for ‘mug’). The highlights on the jug on the table effortlessly relate the cool daylight. Brouwer

A Couple Making Music at a Table, with a Serving Girl depicts a clearly wealthy merchant couple playing music. Pieter de Hooch was a genre painter of the Dutch Golden Age, a period of prosperity and excellence in the arts in the Netherlands. He was also a contemporary, and fellow member of the Guild of

The Visitation is a Dutch Golden Age painting that Rembrandt painted in 1640. It depicts the meeting of the Virgin Mary and her sister Elisabeth, both pregnant – Mary with Jesus and Elisabeth with John the Baptist as told in Gospel of Luke. The exquisite lighting effects come to a resolution on the two women,

A Boy and a Girl with a Cat and an Eel is a jovial genre picture by Dutch Golden Age painter Judith Leyster where the Dutch proverb not to ‘hold an eel by the tail’ seems to apply. However, the young girl wagging her finger holds the cat by the tail agitating it. The picture

Beware of Luxury is a 1663 painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Jan Steen. This work is located in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria. Analysis of Steen’s Beware of Luxury Beware of Luxury by Dutch Golden Age painter Jan Steen contains many figures, mostly personifying a certain moral laxity as a result of

A Game of Cards is a 1633 genre scene painting by Dutch Golden Age artist Judith Leyster. Depicting a scene from everyday life, four players share a joke and seem to invite the viewer to the game. Judith Leyster, a Dutch painter of the Golden Age, was greatly admired in her own time yet suffered

Winter Landscape with Skaters is a 1608 painting by Hendrick Avercamp where the Dutch artist, who was a deaf mute, carefully portrayed a harsh winter day in 17th century Netherlands. On the surface of this traditional winter scene we can see the townspeople enjoying themselves, choosing the spend the day in leisure, ice skating and

Sarah Waiting for Tobias by Dutch master Rembrandt contains beautifully subtle effects of shading on the skin of the woman peering out from the bed. The 1643 painting also has different textures, from the gold of her tiara to the rich fabric that Sarah lifts with her left hand – expertly painted, emphasizing the illusion

Girl at a Window is a 1645 painting by Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn which leaves much of its interpretation entirely up to the viewer. Here we see a young girl staring out at the viewer. She is leaning against a table or ledge and there aren’t really any other standout characteristics other than her

In this 1661 double portrait titled Two Moors, Dutch artist Rembrandt affords dignity to two black men by the fact that they are the sole subject of the work. At this time, the only depictions of black people were as servants – both occupationally and artistically, as they were usually bit-part players to a ‘larger’

Two Old Men Disputing is a very early 1628 work by Dutch Golden Age painter Rembrandt. It is in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. Analysis of Two Old Men Disputing This work depicts two scholars, or by many art historians, of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, in the midst of a debate.

This 1661 portrait of Margaretha de Geer is one of a pair painted by Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn. It is located in the National Gallery in London, United Kingdom. Analysis of Portrait of Margaretha de Geer The other is of Jacob Trip, Margaretha’s wealthy industrialist husband, with interests in manufacturing and goods trading from

Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn painted this portrait of Frederick Rihel on horseback in 1663, three years after the Civil Guard’s involvement in Prince William of Orange visiting Amsterdam in 1660. This is the only equestrian portrait Rembrandt created and is notable in that the horse is painted in a rather amateurish manner, a far

A Man Blowing Smoke at Drunken Woman is a 1665 painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Jan Steen. Here Steen depicts a Man blowing Smoke at a drunken woman in a tavern. She holds a glass of wine or something stronger in her right hand, facing sideways certainly spilling whatever the glass once contained

The Raising of the Cross is a 1633 religious painting by Dutch Baroque artist Rembrandt van Rijn. It is located in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, Germany. Analysis of The Raising of the Cross Rembrandt is perhaps the most renowned of the Dutch Baroque painters. The Raising of the Cross of 1633, painted when the

Girl with a Broom is a 1671 oil painting by Dutch Golden Age and Baroque Master Rembrandt van Rijn. This work is in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC in the United States. Analysis of Rembrand’s Girl with a Broom Despite being widely attributed to Rembrandt, Girl with a Broom of 1651 is

The Sacrifice of Isaac is a 1635 masterpiece Golden Age painting by Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn which tells the story of the Binding of Isaac from the Book of Genesis. In Genisis 22, God commands Abraham for a sacrifice – his Son, Isaac at the mountains of Moriah. Abraham, while a moment away from

Dating to the latter part of Abraham Bloemaert’s career, when his style turned towards the genre painting that was gaining popularity in Utrecht, the sole focus of Boy with Rumbling Pot (1625-30) is a young carnival reveler. The “rumbling pot” that he holds was an instrument made of a clay pot covered with a pig’s

Rhetoricians at a Window is a Genre painting by Dutch Golden Age artist Jan Steen which was painted from 1662 to 1666. The picture depicts a group of four people (and a shaded figure taking a large sip from a likely alcoholic drink in the background) sitting beside a window. It is either a residential