"The still life is one of the best-loved subjects in painting. For hundred years it has been depicted by great and minor masters. The genre reached its climax in the Dutch Golden Age. This handy dictionary provides information on painters of still life in oils, active between 1525 and 1725 and considered as Dutch/Flemish school. 'Still lifes' are arrangements of flowers, fruit, fish, barn, plants, game, vanitas symbols, trompe l'oeil etcetera." --Back cover.

Despite the tremendous number of studies produced annually in the field of Dutch art over the last 30 years or so, and the strong contemporary market for works by Dutch masters of the period as well as the public's ongoing fascination with some of its most beloved painters, until now there has been no comprehensive study assessing the state of research in the field. As the first study of its kind, this book is a useful resource for scholars and advanced students of seventeenth-century Dutch art, and also serves as a springboard for further research. Its 19 chapters, divided into three sections and written by a team of internationally renowned art historians, address a wide variety of topics, ranging from those that might be considered "traditional" to others that have only drawn scholarly attention comparatively recently.

The Netherlands, frequently but erroneously called Holland, is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. In the past few decades, it has been undergoing many transformations made possible by its dynamic and fast-moving political landscape. It has shifted from fierce nationalism toward a self-image of tolerance and permissiveness: the national identity and self-consciousness has slowly eroded through decolonization and immigration. Unfortunately, several murders of prominent, controversial politicians have started yet another shift away from tolerance, and economic stagnation has bred pessimism. Nonetheless, despite many trials and tribulations, there has been real progress, and the Dutch have perhaps done a better job of coming to terms with their limitations than many others in the world. The second edition of the Historical Dictionary of the Netherlands contains more than 700 cross-referenced dictionary entries on individual topics spanning the Netherlands' political, economic, and social system along with short biographies on important figures who have shaped the Netherlands' history. Supplementing the entries are a list of acronyms and abbreviations, a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and a bibliography, making this a superb quick reference on the Netherlands.

This book is the first complete study of the life and work of the 17th-century Dutch painter Anthonie Palamedes (1602-1673). Palamedes was active in Delft, one of the most important cities during the Dutch Golden Age, alongside Vermeer. Unlike his famous compatriot Vermeer, Anthonie Palamedes was a successful painter. He was socially acceptable, was recognized and appreciated by his colleagues, painted hundreds of pictures and achieved financial success that allowed him to live comfortably. Palamedes is therefore the embodiment of the successful painter in the Dutch "Golden Age". The book includes a biography of the painter as well as a systematic and comparative iconographical and stylistic study of his work, with an attached critical oeuvre catalogue.

Three hundred years ago, an unprecedented explosion in inexpensive, disposable print--newspapers, pamphlets, informational publications, artistic prints--ushered in a media revolution that forever changed our relationship to information. One unusually perceptive man, an obscure Dutch/British still life painter named Edward Collier, understood the full significance of these momentous changes and embedded in his work secret warnings about the inescapable slippages between author and print, meaning and text, viewer and canvas, perception and reality. Working around 1700, Collier has been neglected, even forgotten, precisely because his secret messages have never been noticed, let alone understood. Until now. In Mr. Collier's Letter Racks, Dror Wahrman recovers the tale of an extraordinary illusionist artist who engaged in a wholly original way with a major transformation of his generation. Wahrman shows how Collier developed a hidden language within his illusionist paintings--replete with minutely coded messages, witty games, intricate allusions, and private jokes--to draw attention to the potential and the pitfalls of this new information age. A remarkably shrewd and prescient commentator on the changes unfolding around him, not least the advent of a new kind of politics following the Glorious Revolution, Collier performed a post-modernist critique of modernity long before the modern age. His trompe l'oeil paintings are filled with seemingly disconnected, enigmatic objects--letters, seals, texts of speeches, magnifying glasses, title pages--and with teasingly significant details that require the viewer to lean in and peer closely. Wahrman does just that, taking on the role of detective/cultural historian to unravel the layers of deceptions contained within Collier's extraordinary paintings. Written with passionate enthusiasm and including more than 70 color illustrations, Mr. Collier's Letter Racks is a spell-binding feat of cultural history, illuminating not only the work of an eccentric genius but the media revolution of his period, the birth of modern politics, and the nature of art itself.

The first book-length study of household servants and slaves, exploring a visual history over 400 years and four continents The first book-length study of both images of ordinary household workers and their material culture, Household Servants and Slaves: A Visual History, 1300-1700 covers four hundred years and four continents, facilitating a better understanding of the changes in service that occurred as Europe developed a monetary economy, global trade, and colonialism. Diane Wolfthal presents new interpretations of artists including the Limbourg brothers, Albrecht Dürer, Paolo Veronese, and Diego Velázquez, but also explores numerous long-neglected objects, including independent portraits of ordinary servants, servant dolls and their miniature cleaning utensils, and dummy boards, candlesticks, and tablestands in the form of servants and slaves. Wolfthal analyzes the intersection of class, race, and gender while also interrogating the ideology of service, investigating both the material conditions of household workers' lives and the immaterial qualities with which they were associated. If images repeatedly relegated servants to the background, then this book does the reverse: it foregrounds these figures in order to better understand the ideological and aesthetic functions that they served.