ABSTRACT
By the 1660s, the expansion of the Dutch market for paintings had come to an end, and decline soon set in. 1 These trends were, moreover, accompanied by a qualitative slump. Late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century paintings have long been brushed aside as derivatives of international fashion and of Golden Age painting. 2 To some extent, this perception can be traced back to eighteenth-century sources in which a general criticism of the current state of affairs in the Republic became fashionable due to a perceived decline of morals and manners, and earlier artistic styles were praised over contemporary ones. The fascination for seventeenth-century art was further strengthened during the nineteenth century when the notion of typically ‘Dutch art’ developed. 3
