At the time, the art of the seventeenth‐century Dutch Republic was admired and sought after far beyond the country's borders. To this day, works by painters such as Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Johannes Vermeer are among the most prized in many museums. The outstanding quality, wholly individual character of the art and the huge output of paintings and prints in this period are unique in history. This book introduces the work of the greatest artists of the Dutch golden age, an era of unparalleled wealth, power and cultural confidence. It presents a vivid and compelling panorama of a place and period, from tranquil landscapes, symbol‐laden still‐lifes, the colorful life of the cities and the characters of the people to maritime power. Beautifully illustrated and designed, and written in an engaging and accessible style, Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age enlightens readers on the artists, the art, and the times. The seventy-eight artworks by some fifty artists are organized in themes: meeting the Dutch; inside and outside the town walls; across the oceans; the home and the inn; Rembrandt, master of light and shade; tales from the past; and arrangements of life and death.

Accompanying the exhibition at Louvre Abu Dhabi, the catalogue Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age provides an image-rich overview of the artworks exhibited, complimented by four essays. The first situates The Leiden Collection within the context of the Dutch Golden Age. The second and third describe the major role that the Netherlands played on a global scale in the in the 17th century, the specificities of the Dutch Golden Age as well as the work of Rembrandt and his contemporaries, rooted in the society of that time and place. The fourth essay sheds light on the particular role that drawing played in the creative process of Dutch artists.

Essays by American and Dutch scholars and museum curators explore the collecting and reception of seventeenth-century Dutch painting in America, from the colonial era through the Gilded Age to today.

Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch Art celebrates an unprecedented era in the history of art. Drawn from the superb collections of Amsterdam's famed Rijksmuseum, the works of art featured here are a testament to the richness and variety of the paintings, prints, and decorative arts produced in the Netherlands in the 17th century. In a unique approach, Ruud Priem leads the viewer through the highlights of the Golden Age, beginning with the artists themselves and their studios, emerging into busy city streets and the bucolic Dutch countryside, and sampling the variety of 17th-century life and culture. Featured are ninety dazzling works by preeminent Dutch artists--Rembrandt van Rijn, Frans Hals, Jacob van Ruisdael, Pieter de Hooch, and Jan Steen, among them.

This book offers a new perspective on the art of the Dutch Golden Age by exploring the interaction between the gift's symbolic economy of reciprocity and obligation and the artistic culture of early modern Holland. Gifts of art were pervasive in seventeenth-century Europe and many Dutch artists, like their counterparts elsewhere, embraced gift giving to cultivate relations with patrons, art lovers, and other members of their social networks. Rembrandt also created distinctive works to function within a context of gift exchange, and both Rembrandt and Vermeer engaged the ethics of the gift to identify their creative labor as motivated by what contemporaries called a "love of art," not materialistic gain. In the merchant republic's vibrant market for art, networks of gift relations and the anti-economic rhetoric of the gift mingled with the growing dimension of commerce, revealing a unique chapter in the interconnected history of gift giving and art making.

"An art historical study of Rembrandt's use of religious imagery, arranged by subject matter. Demonstrates the new ideas the artist brought to his interpretations of the Jerusalem Temple and the apostolate church, as he explored the relationship between Jewish and Christian revelation in biblical history"--Provided by publisher.

The 17th-century in the Netherlands is known as the Golden Age of Dutch art, and the art produced during that period is among the most popular in history. During this time, the Dutch Republic reached unprecedented power. Banking and the first truly global trade routes generated staggering levels of new wealth that, coupled with political and religious freedom, created a vibrant atmosphere in which the arts flourished. Celebrated portraitists Hals and Rembrandt painted haunting images of the country's new civic leaders and wealthy patrons. Genre painter Vermeer conjured unforgettable scenes of daily life, while Cuyp, de Witte, and Heda captured the Dutch countryside and its prosperous new cities and created intricate, richly symbolic still lifes. This sumptuous book features these and other Golden Age greats, along with a selection of fine Delft pottery, glassware, and silver that attests to the luxurious refinement of the era.