Title Company of Captain Reinier Reael, known as the 'Meagre Company'

Year 1637

Artist Frans Hals ( Pieter Codde )

Technique Oil on canvas

Dimensions 209 x 429 cm



Just to see that painting would make the journey to Amsterdam worthwhile.' wrote Vincent van Gogh in 1885, after having seen this work in the Rijksmuseum. He particularly liked the 'orange banner in the left corner,' he had 'seldom seen a more divinely beautiful figure'. The painting that caused such a sensation was the group portrait of the crossbowmen's militia under Captain Reinier Reael, painted by Frans Hals and Pieter Codde in 1637. The painting has been known for centuries as the 'Meagre Company', because the figures portrayed all appear remarkably thin.

In 1633 Frans Hals was commissioned to paint the portraits of Captain Reynier Reael and Lieutenant Cornelis Michielsz. Blaeuw with their militia unit. He had to paint the picture in Amsterdam, where the militiamen lived. Hals himself lived in Haarlem; which meant that he had to travel back and forth regularly.
The Amsterdam civic guard had asked Frans Hals because of his reputation for lively civic guard portraits, and because he avoided staid, formally posed group portraits. But the militiamen could not have taken into account that Hals might start to find commuter travel tedious.

The Spendthrift

Title The Spendthrift', Act III, Scene V, from the play of the same name by Thomas Asselijn

Year 1741

Artist Cornelis Troost

Technique Oil on panel

Dimensions 68,5 x 86 cm


This tableau shows a scene from the farce 'The Spendthrift or the Wasteful Woman' written by Thomas Asselijn in 1693. Joanna, the woman in the white dress spends money like water, buying the most extravagant items. Her father and husband have disguised themselves as Polish Jewish traders. They plan to catch Joanna trying to sell her expensive clothes for a pittance. She intends to use the money to by new valuables. The eighteenth-century painter Cornelis Troost has turned this into a colourful scene.

This is not a picture of a man smoking a pipe, but a picture of a painting of a man smoking a pipe. In front of the painting-within-a-painting hangs a green curtain on a copper rail. It is so realistic you might even mistake it for a real curtain - in the seventeenth century it was not uncommon to protect paintings from strong light. Gerard Dou tried to trick the viewer into actually attempting to draw the curtain. Meanwhile the artist looks on: the man with the pipe in the window is Gerard Dou himself.

Title Self Portrait

Year c. 1650

Artist Gerard Dou

Technique Oil on panel

Dimensions 48 x 37 cm

A young woman taking a bath, assisted by two servants. This is Bathsheba, a legendary beauty. Cornelis van Haarlem painted her in 1594. The story of the fair Bathsheba is told in the biblical Book of Samuel. One evening she was bathing in the garden. King David saw her from the roof of his palace and fell in love with her. All that is visible of the palace here is the contour behind the garden wall. The king is nowhere to be seen. The focus is on the three women in the foreground. The artist used Bathsheba's bath as a theme in which to show various facets of the female nude, monumental and at the same time as natural as possible.

Year 1594

Artist Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem

Year 1623

Artist Gerard van Honthorst


A man is leaning out of a window, laughing. In one hand he has a violin and a bow; in the other a glass of wine. He is pushing the curtain - a Persian carpet - to the side. The man is wearing a fantasy costume: an elegant beret and a colourfully striped jacket. This is probably not a portrait, just a picture of cheerful character. The musician appears to be actually looming out of the canvas. He is inviting the viewer to come into the party.

The man portrayed here, Dr Ephraim Bueno (1599-1665), was a well-known Jewish physician and man of letters. Rembrandt painted this sketch in oils in 1647. It is a preliminary study for an etching of Dr Bueno. It is the only known sketch in oils for a portrait print by Rembrandt.

Title The Peace Negotiations between Claudius Civilis and Cerealis

Year c. 1660-70


Standing on opposite sides of a demolished bridge are two warriors. They are negotiating across the divide. The man on the right is Cerealis, recognisable as a Roman from the standard with an eagle behind him. His men are pictured higher up. The man opposite him is Claudius Civilis, a Batavian. His followers are refreshing themselves in the river in the foreground. Fame (Fama) floats in the sky above. She is crowning the two leaders with laurel wreaths.

The story of the Massacre of the Innocents is found in the Bible.
After the birth of Jesus, King Herod heard that a new king of the Jews had been born in Bethlehem.
Having no way to recognise the child, he ordered his soldiers to kill all the boys in Bethlehem younger than two.
Meanwhile, Mary and Joseph had already fled with the baby Jesus to Egypt. They remained there until after the death of Herod.
In 1590 Cornelis van Haarlem painted a blood-curdling picture of the Massacre of the Innocents.
The subject had never before been tackled on so large and ambitious a scale.

Artist Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem

Year 1590

A crowd has gathered outside a bookshop and lottery agency in Amsterdam's Kalverstraat. It is 25 October, 1779, and the sale of lottery tickets for the 66th General Lottery has begun. Men, bent on obtaining a ticket, push and shove around the entrance. The eighteenth-century architectural painter, Isaak Ouwater, has depicted the event in great detail. However, Ouwater has filled in much of the picture with windows and the red bricks of the houses - a highly unusual composition. Ouwater was commissioned to paint this work by Jan de Groot, the owner of the bookshop and lottery agency.

Title The Bookshop and Lottery Agency of Jan de Groot on Kalverstraat in Amsterdam
Year 1779
Artist Isaak Ouwater
Technique Oil on canvas
Dimensions 38,5 x 33,5 cm

Title The Bodies of the De Witt Brothers, Hanged at Groene Zoodje on Vijverberg in The Hague

Artist Jan de Baen

The 'Groene zoodje' on Vijverberg in The Hague, was, for a few days in August 1672, silent witness to this gruesome scene. Two naked bodies are hanging with their feet tied to the gallows. The belly of the body on the left has been ripped open. It is night time and the bodies are illuminated by a burning torch. These are the bodies of the De Witt brothers, Cornelius and Johan. Both played prominent roles in the Stadholderless Period (1651-1672). As the pensionary, Johan had been the most powerful statesman in the Republic for a long time. In the disaster year of 1672, their time was up, once and for all: Johan and Cornelius de Witt were lynched by a mob in The Hague.

Johan De witt


His pro-French policy however would prove to be his undoing. In the Dutch rampjaar (disaster year) of 1672, when France and England during the Franco-Dutch War (Third Anglo-Dutch War) attacked the Republic, the Orangists took power by force and expelled him. Recovering from an earlier attempt on his life in June, he was assassinated by a carefully organized lynch "mob" after visiting his brother Cornelis de Witt in prison. He was decoyed into this trap by a forged letter.

After the arrival of Johan de Witt the city guard was sent away to stop plundering farmers, the farmers were not found. Without any protection against the assembled mob the brothers were doomed. They were taken out of the prison and on their way to the scaffold killed. Immediately after their death the bodies were mutilated and fingers toes and other parts were cut off. The heart of Cornelis de Witt was exhibited for many years next to his brother's by Dirck Verhoeff[citation needed].
Nowadays most historians assume that his adversary and successor as leader of the government stadtholder William III of Orange was involved. At the very least he protected and rewarded the killers.


Year c. 1672-1702