ABSTRACT
The one connecting factor in the different chapters in this book is obviously Van Hoogstraten himself: there was a single personality - although our knowledge of it may be shifting with each new historiographical focus - that linked art, literature, and scholarship during a foundational era of Dutch cultural history. Even though getting to know the ‘real’ Samuel van Hoogstraten may be beyond our ken as historians, it is a legitimate ambition to try to sketch the conceptual and ideological framework which implicitly connected his varied efforts. Four major themes surface throughout the present book’s chapters and determine the surplus value of the sum of the parts: 1) training in Rembrandt’s studio; 2) the theory and practice of art as deceit; 3) Van Hoogstraten as a courtier; and 4) his ambitions in the context of the history of knowledge. These themes illuminate the paintings as well as the writings, and may also indicate avenues for future research.
