Room 23

We are in a dingy tavern with a small gathering of drinkers and smokers squatting on low wooden stools and chairs. The focus of their attention – and ours – is the tussle going on between a man and a young woman on the left-hand side of the painting.The depiction is unusually lewd. The man, his t...

This is a typical example of the small but exquisitely executed still-life paintings which were Adriaen Coorte’s specialism. He used a dark background and dramatic lighting to highlight the contrast between different shapes and surfaces, such as the translucence of ripe gooseberries and the musty...

Two men concentrate on a game of tric-trac, a form of backgammon, while a woman chalks the score on the side of the board. Meanwhile one man sits smoking, lost in his thoughts, while another lights a pipe from a bowl of embers. None of them is speaking and nor do they look at one another; all the...

This group portrait shows the officers of the Coopers‘ and Wine-rackers’ guild of Amsterdam, which included men who made barrels for the wine imported into the city and those who sampled and bottled it. The name of the guild is written on the seal which hangs over the edge of the table, while in...

A group of cheerful young people crowd around a small table in an elegant room. The fashionable clothing they wear, some of which is very colourful, differs from the sombre black costumes we can see in many Dutch portraits of the time.Dirck Hals specialised in scenes of people feasting and enjoyi...

The sitter in this portrait is clearly a prosperous man, conventionally but expensively dressed in the style of the mid-1640s. Beyond that, no evidence has survived – we don’t know who he is. Nevertheless, this portrait is a good example of Hals’s ability both to capture a convincing likeness and...

This painting demonstrates Frans Hals’s gift for creating lively and animated portraits that suggest distinctive personalities. We don't know who the woman in this compelling work is, but her elegant dress and jewellery indicate that, like many of Hals’s patrons, she may have been the wife of a w...

Although apparently casually displayed, the objects in this still life would immediately have suggested wealth and extravagance to a seventeenth-century viewer. The cloths have a satin-like sheen, and the objects on them are all expensive luxuries. They‘re carefully chosen, not just because they...

Willem Claesz. Heda uses muted colours to show us the ingredients of a meal – with a focus on quality, not quantity. Everything on the table is expensive: this is the meal of a rich man. The white table cloth is made of damask, a luxurious silk fabric. Lemons were brought in from the Mediterranea...

This still-life painting – one of the most popular genres in seventeenth-century Holland – celebrates the challenges of depicting the play of light on different surfaces and textures. Look at the subtle highlights on the weave of the Turkish carpet, the sheen and lustre on silver and glass, the...

Constantijn Huygens was a senior diplomat who spoke several languages and had a wide knowledge of the arts and sciences. In this portrait, he’s caught in action, receiving a message from a young clerk. Interrupted in his work, he wears a riding outfit as if ready to be up and off in a moment on s...

'He who plays with cats gets scratched’ – in other words, he who looks for trouble will get it. This is an old Dutch motto that appears to be a possible source for Judith Leyster’s cheerful picture, and it’s been suggested that the painting was intended as both delightful entertainment and a warn...

A young girl stands by a column and a balustrade, her hair tied back in a chignon, with tendrils hanging down on either side of her face. The girl’s dress dates the picture to the late 1640s. Isaack Luttichuys often painted his sitters against architectural backdrops and at first glance the paint...

A happy young couple make music in an elegant panelled room with costly furniture. An open door, marble columns on either side, reveals a glimpse of a room beyond, where a fine gauze curtain hangs at a window. The young man sits at his ease, his long fingers plucking the strings of the theorbo –...

The mischievous smiles of three children light up a dreary room with bare walls and little furniture; the barrel suggests it may be the back room of an inn. Their clothes are shabby and torn, but each has a sparkle in the eye and they look at home in their surroundings.The boy in the red jacket h...

There’s no doubt about where our gaze is directed here. A dramatic shaft of sunlight cuts through the gloom to highlight the empty eye sockets and gap-toothed grin of a skull which lolls to one side on the edge of the table. We are staring death in the face, while the snuffed-out lamp and ticking...

Here Jan Jansz. Treck has risen to the challenge of evoking the lustre of and distorted reflections in silver, pewter, glass, porcelain and eggshells as well as the complex shadows in a crumpled linen cloth. It was a highly valued skill in Dutch still-life painting and this rather beautiful examp...

Jan Jansz. Treck’s complex but sombre picture is a vanitas, a type of still life that holds a moral message. A still life often presents costly objects in an elegant composition to be admired and discussed by the viewer, like the musical instruments, lacquer box, Rhenish jug and scarf made with g...

Paintings of Merry Companies (a group of people playing music together or otherwise entertaining themselves in a domestic setting) were very popular in Holland in the early 1630s. This is a particularly distinctive example: a shaft of bright sunlight gives the composition a clear structure and br...