abstract:The Dutch Golden Age ( ) was a period in Dutch history, roughly spanning the 17th century, in which Dutch trade, science, military, and art were among the most acclaimed in the world. The first half is characterized by the Eighty Years' War till 1648.
While larger museums may contain bigger and better collections of 17th-century Dutch art, the Mauritshuis offers an excellent survey of all the genres that artists of the DutchGoldenAge so miraculously mastered.
The exhibition, officially titled Girl with a Pearl Earring: Dutch Paintings from the Mauritshuis at the de Young also features 34 other paintings by DutchGoldenAge masters, including works by Rembrandt, Peiter Claesz, Jacob van Ruisdael and Frans Hals.
The turn toward secular subjects of Dutch culture in the GoldenAge was a lucky result of Calvinism, which banished most art from churches while tolerating it in daily life, on the condition that it illustrate proper morality.