Amsterdam Studies in the Dutch Golden Age

Millions of paintings were produced in the Dutch Republic. The works that we know and see in museums today constitute only the tip of the iceberg — the top-quality part. But what else was painted? This book explores the low-quality end of the seventeenth-century art market and outlines the significance of that production in the genre of history paintings, which in traditional art historical studies, is usually linked to high prices, famous painters, and elite buyers. Angela Jager analyses the producers, suppliers, and consumers active in this segment to gain insight into this enormous market for cheap history paintings. What did the supply consist of in terms of quantity, quality, price, and subject? Who produced all these works and which production methods did these painters employ? Who distributed these paintings, to whom, and which strategies were used to market them? Who bought these paintings, and why?

In the 17th century, the Dutch Republic was the centre of the world trade in exotic drugs and spices. They were sought after both as medicines, and as luxury objects for the bourgeois class, giving rise to a medical and moral anxiety in the Republic. This ambivalent view on exotic drugs is the theme of the poetry of Joannes Six van Chandelier (1620-1695). Six, who himself ran the drug shop ‘The Gilded Unicorn’ in Amsterdam, addresses a number of exotic medicines in his poems, such as musk, incense, the miracle drug theriac, Egyptian mumia, and even the blood of Charles I of England. In Dangerous Drugs, these texts are studied for the first time. The study shows how Six, through a process of self-presentation as a sober and restrained merchant, but also as a penitent sinner, thirsting for God’s grace, links early modern drug abuse to different desires, such as lust, avarice, pride and curiosity. The book shows also how an early modern debate on exotic drugs contributed to an important shift in early modern natural science, from a drug lore based on mythical and fabulous concepts, to a botany based on observation and systematic examination.

In this study, the appearance and location of shops in Amsterdam during the early modern period is linked to major changes in the urban economy, the size and socio-spatial distribution of its population, and the structure of the urban grid. Not only is there ample attention for the spatial distribution of shops across the urban landscape, but for the first time it is also accurately charted what the exterior and interior of Amsterdam shops looked like and how they changed in the course of the centuries. Partly as a result of this, it has proved possible to give an impression of the ways in which retailers and customers interacted. The Dutch language edition of this book is available from Uitgeverij Verloren (2013): Het winkellandschap van Amsterdam, ISBN: 978 90 8704 373 5.

This book explores one artist's transformation of alchemy and its materials into a reputation for virtuosity-and what his work can teach us about the experimental early modern world.

Romeyn de Hooghe was the most inventive and prolific etcher of the later Dutch Golden Age. The producer of wide-ranging book illustrations, newsprints, allegories, and satire, he is best known as the chief propaganda artist working for stadtholder and king William III. This study, the first book-length biography of de Hooghe, narrates how his reputation became badly tarnished when he was accused of pornography, fraud, larceny, and atheism. Traditionally regarded as a godless rogue, and more recently as an exponent of the Radical Enlightenment, de Hooghe emerges in this study as a successful entrepreneur, a social climber, and an Orangist spin doctor. A study in seventeenth-century political culture and patronage, focusing on spin and slander, this book explores how artists, politicians, and hacks employed literature and the visual arts in political discourse, and tried to capture their readership with satire, mockery, fun, and laughter.I must admit that while I expected to be impressed, knowing the earlier work of this author, the text surpassed my expectations: it is a truly outstanding and in every way excellent contribution to the history of the Golden Age. Romeyn de Hooghe was the foremost engraver of the later Dutch Golden Age, a highly influential figure in the spread of engraving and etching in Europe as far as Russia, immensely productive and also a major figure in the Dutch and international political propaganda and pamphlet wars of the era. Despite his obvious importance, previous efforts had never got beyond brief and in some cases misleading sketches because of the great complexity of the subject matter and because much of this in part murky story remained buried in little studied notarial and unpublished juridical manuscript sources. It needed a lot of painstaking research, patience and a thorough knowledge of many aspects of Dutch history in the Golden Age to be able to succeed in this venture. The author has succeeded in achieving what no one has succeeded in in doing previously - setting out a clear, detailed and convincing, well-supported account of the sometimes seemingly baffling shifts and swerves in De Hooghe's career, fortunes, reputation and political stance. - Jonathan Israel, professor emeritus, Institute for Advanced Study, PrincetonThis book offers a fascinating portrait of the etcher, pamphleteer, pornographer, provocateur, freethinker, spy, author, entrepreneur, husband and father, Romeyn de Hooghe. The account of how he became embroiled in controversy and intrigue throughout his life yields an invaluable perspective of the cultural and political history of the Dutch Golden Age. The book is also remarkably relevant in this age of international political machinations, propaganda, and the distortion and concealment of information by spin doctors and the media. - Huigen Leeflang, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

This study offers a new and systematic approach towards the interactions among the notions of theatricality, dramatisation, moment, and event

This collection brings together art historians, museum professionals, conservators, and conservation scientists whose work involves Rembrandt van Rijn and associated artists such as Gerrit Dou, Jan Lievens, and Ferdinand Bol.

This is the first book to offer a translation into English-as well as a critical study-of a Spanish treatise written around 1650 by Rabbi Saul Levi Morteira.

Claartje Rasterhoff shows how industrial organisations played a role in shaping patterns of growth and innovations in painting and publishing in the Dutch Republic.

This book examines both the policies of church boards and town councils in organising charitable appeals, as well as the general population's giving behaviour.

This fine translation of the poetry of the Dutch Golden Age poet Constantijn Huygens offers a selection of the best of his work written in a number of languages.

New insights into the world routes travelled by seventeenth-century Dutch visual culture, as well as the rise of Asian influence in the imagery of the Dutch Golden Age.

This new study provides a comprehensive account of the multilingualism of Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687).

The rebels of the Dutch Revolt, their political thoughts and the media they used to express them, have long been a focus of historical attention. This book, however, focuses on the largely untold story of what the other side, the Habsburg regime and its local supporters, thought about the conflict and how they responded to rebel accusations. To this end, a variety of oral, written and theatrical media have been examined to discover how the regime made use of the different communication channels available. In addition, available sources have been used to document ordinary people’s response to the conflict and the various messages they encountered in the public sphere. The result is a study that sheds new and sometimes surprising light on the Habsburg regime’s approach to communication and opinion-forming, while also providing a useful corrective to our understanding of rebel propaganda.

This richly illustrated study is the first consider the manifold functions and meanings of Hals’s distinctive handling of paint. Atkins explores the uniqueness of Hals’s approach to painting and the relationship of his manner to seventeenth-century aesthetics. He also investigates the economic motivations and advantages of his methods, the operation of the style as a personal and workshop brand, and the apparent modernity of the artist’s style. The book seeks to understand the multiple levels on which Hals’s consciously cultivated manner of painting operated for himself, his pupils and assistants, his clients, and succeeding generations of viewers. As a result, the book offers a wholly new understanding of one of the leading artists of the Dutch Golden Age, and one of the most formative painters in the history of art in the Western tradition. It also provides a much needed interrogation of the interrelationships of subjectivity, style, authorship, methods of artistic and commercial production, economic consumption, and art theory in early modernity.

This essential volume traces the evolution of connoisseurship in the booming art market of the seventeenth- and eighteenth centuries. Not to be missed by anyone with an interest in the Old Masters and the early modern art market.