This lavishly illustrated book is an authoritative and perceptive study of Dutch painting from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. Seymour Slive focuses on the major artists of the period, analyzing works by Hals, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Jacob van Ruisdael, and others. He discusses the kinds of painting that became Dutch specialties—portraits, genre scenes, landscapes, seascapes, Italianate pictures, architectural painting, and still lifes—as well as traditional biblical and historical subjects painted by artists of the period. He also examines patronage and trends of art theory, criticism, and collecting. This book replaces the classic section on painting in Dutch Art and Architecture: 1600-1800, jointly written by Slive and Jakob Rosenberg in the 1960s. Slive has completely rewritten and expanded the original text, taking into account his own and other recent scholarship on Dutch painting as well as new archival finds, technical analyses of paintings made by conservators and scientists, and significant pictures that have been discovered. The number of illustrations has doubled, and the result is a book that will immediately establish itself as the new standard work on this great period of painting.

Seymour Slive is Gleason Professor of Fine Arts emeritus at Harvard University. He is a former director of the Fogg Art Museum and the founding director of the Sackler Museum, both at Harvard University.

This lavishly illustrated book is an authoritative study of Dutch painting from 1600 to 1800 and covers all the major artists of the period -- including Hals, Rembrandt, and Vermeer -- setting them firmly in the wider context of Dutch art. It has immediately established itself as the new standard work on this great period of painting. "Seymour Slive's text first appeared in 1966 in partnership with the late Jakob Rosenberg. It was wonderful then, and it is even more so now that Mr. Slive has revised and expanded his text, and the number of illustrations is now 432, about twice as many as before". -- John Russell, New York Times Book Review "Slive is a great teacher and he knows how to impart his enthusiasm to his readers.... This volume is the useful instrument which every user will hope and expect to find". -- Lyckle De Vries, Burlington Magazine "Like the original Pelican volume, this one is an essential reference and serves both the academic and the general reader". -- Choice