The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Dutch Painting in the Seventeenth Century

"As the author's stimulating introductory text makes clear, the extraordinary and unparalleled flowering of artistic talent in the Northern Provinces in the early years of the century was partly conditioned by political circumstances. It is this feeling for the essence of everyday life, both human and inanimate, that makes seventeenth-century Dutch painting so sympathetic to modern eyes."