1. On the educational power of images, see Freedberg, David, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (Chicago, 1989), 4–5, 11–12, 446 n. 7. On the concept of education, see Dekker, Jeroen J. H., Het gezinsportret: Over de geschiedenis van opvoeding, cultuuroverdracht en identiteit (Baarn, 1992); and Spiecker, Ben, “De pedagogische relatie,” in Theoretische pedagogiek: Opstellen , ed. Spiecker, Ben, Levering, B., and Beekman, Ton (Meppel, 1982), 97–114.Google Scholar

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13. “This seventeenth century concept of the complete malleability of a child's behavior formed the matrix for an artistic output whose implications often appear to us so behavioristic.” Bedaux, , The Reality, 155, see also 71–108. Luijten, , Dawn ; Brown, Christopher, “… Niet ledighs of Ydels …”: Nederlandse genreschilders uit de zeventiende eeuw (Amsterdam, 1984), 9. On painting in fifteenth-century Italy, see Baxandall, , Painting. Schenkeveld, , Nederlandse literatuur, 11.Google Scholar

14. See Dekker, and Groenendijk, , “The Republic,” 319–21; Brown, , “… Niet ledighs”, 51–60; Sutton, P. C., Masters of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Genre Painting (Philadelphia, 1984), lxvii–lxxxv; Van Deursen, , Mensen ; Braudel, Fernand, Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme, XVe–XVIIIe siècle, vol. 3, Le temps du monde (Paris, 1979), ch. 3 on Amsterdam; Huizinga, Johan, Dutch Civilisation in the Seventeenth Century and Other Essays (London, 1968; 1941); Schotel, , Het Oud-Hollandsch ; Haak, B., The Golden Age: Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century (New York, 1984), part 1, on artists and patrons. Luijten, , Dawn; on demographic patterns, see van der Woude, A. M., “Variations in the Size and Structure of the Household in the United Provinces of the Netherlands in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” in Household and Family in Past Time …, ed. Laslett, Peter (London, 1974), 299–318; on Vondel, a Catholic convert, see Schenkeveld, , Nederlandse literatuur, 66–67. The other painters dealt with in this article were moderately Protestant, with the exception of the Catholic Jan Steen.Google Scholar

15. In his discussion of this sort of painting, Schama remained rather ambiguous. On the one hand, he emphasized the role of the child, coming to the conclusion that the Republic was a republic of children, the first one in history, insofar as demonstrated by European art. On the other hand, he maintained that the Dutch Republic gave us “the first sustained image of parental love that European art has to show us,” thus emphasizing the parent's role. Schama, , Embarrassment, 541. For critical remarks on his interpretation, see Dekker, and Groenendijk, , “The Republic.” Of the paintings analyzed in this article, Ter Borch's Motherly Cares , Steen's, As the Old Sing , Ochterveld's, Street Musicians , Brueghel's, Children's Games, and Steen's, Unruly School were also shown or described by Schama, .Google Scholar

16. Gerard Ter Borch (1617–81), Motherly Cares, c. 1625–53, Mauritshuis, The Hague; Durantini, , The Child, 29; Brown, , “… Niet ledighs”, 143–47; De Jongh, , Tot lering, 42; on Hals and other painters, see Sutton, , Masters, 143. The same message of domestic virtue was illustrated by Woman Combing a Child's Hair by Van Brekelenkam. This painting is another good example of the theme Preparing for School or The Schoolboy's Meal. The woman “sets aside the daily duties of the household to delouse the boy's hair before sending him off to school.” Durantini, , The Child, 47; Sutton, , Masters, 158. “Some of the most affecting family scenes in Dutch genre painting are of children submitting to their mother's inspection of their heads for nits and lice.” Schama, , Embarrassment, 395.Google Scholar

17. Metsu, Gabriel (1629–67), The Sick Child, c. 1660, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam; Brown, , “… Niet ledighs”, 147; De Jongh, , Tot lering, 171. On Madonnas and Dutch seventeenth-century painting, see Durantini, , The Child, 22. Dekker, Compare and Groenendijk, , “The Republic,” 332 n. 40; On this Metsu as “perhaps the most poignant example,” see Haak, , The Golden Age, 489; Schama, , Embarrassment, 522, agreed with Haak: “The Dutch invented the poignant image of the sick child, most memorably in Gabriel Metsu's heartrending study in the Rijksmuseum”; however, he did not place this painting in the Christian tradition, but incorporated it into his thesis of invention. He even saw this painting as evidence of the low incidence of abandoned children in Amsterdam, but this is not a convincing statement. Mother Cradling Child by Samuel van Hoogstraten fit into this trend of idealizing domesticity and maternal love, see Brown, , “… Niet ledighs”, 140–41. Pieter de Hooch (1629–84), Woman and Child in a Basement Room, c. 1660, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Brown, , “… Niet ledighs”, 143.Google Scholar

18. Dou, Gerard (1613–75), The Young Mother, c. 1660, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin. Gerard Dou, counted by Schama (Embarrassment, 462) as one of the “little masters,” was one of Leiden's painters and his technical skills were much admired by his contemporaries. Until the second half of the nineteenth century, he was rated higher than Rembrandt. Durantini, , The Child, 7–11: “The rattle as a symbol of earthly pleasures also appears in the emblem literature of the seventeenth century”; Sutton, , Masters, 185–86. Netscher, Caspar (c. 1635/36–84), Motherly Cares, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; De Jongh, , Tot lering, 197–99; Durantini, , The Child, 231.Google Scholar

19. van Rijn, Rembrandt (1606–69), Portrait of a Family, c. 1668, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig. Rembrandt's customer has remained in obscurity, as is so often the case with his paintings. This makes any attempt to discover the subjects of the painting nearly hopeless. Schwartz, Gary, Rembrandt: Zijn leven, zijn schilderijen: Een nieuwe biografie met alle beschikbare schilderijen in kleur afgebeeld (Maarssen, 1984); Tümpel, Christian, Rembrandt (Amsterdam, 1986), 418, 337; Haak, B., Rembrandt: His Life, His Work, His Time (New York, 1969), 326–27; Gerson, H., Rembrandt Paintings (Amsterdam, 1968), 452, 507; Leymarie, Jean, Dutch Painting (Geneva, 1976), 142; on the Rembrandt Research Project, see Brown, Christopher, Kelch, Jan, and van Thiel, Peter, eds., Rembrandt: Der Meister und seine Werkstatt (Berlin, 1991).Google Scholar

20. On medieval developments, see Southern, R. W., The Making of the Middle Ages (New Haven, Conn., 1970), 229; and Duby, , L'émergence, 506. Rembrandt, , The Holy Family with the Curtain, 1646, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Kassel; Haak, , The Golden Age, 297; Haak, , Rembrandt, 195; Tümpel, , Rembrandt, 245.Google Scholar

21. Initially the other members of the family were there to bear witness to the genealogy of the family. One example is the Portrait of Konrad Rehlinger of Augsburg with His Children, painted by Bernhard Strigel (c. 1465–1528) in 1517 (Alte Pinakothek, Munich). Konrad, one of the most prestigious patricians of Augsburg, was depicted on the left panel. His eight still surviving children were shown on the right-hand panel. The children who died young appeared through an opening in the heavens. However, family portraits were also executed in which the emotional ties between the members of the family appeared to be the main theme of the picture. Braunstein (Approches, 554), has pointed to the trust and affection emanating from the portraits by Domenico Ghirlandaio of Francesco Sassetti and his son, and from the painting of a grandfather with his grandchild; see Hughes, Owen, Representing, 25, for a different opinion. See also Smith, David R., Masks of Wedlock: Seventeenth-Century Dutch Marriage Portraiture (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1982). One good example is the anonymous Portrait of a Family, 1627, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (on loan to the Rijksmuseum Het Catharijneconvent, Utrecht). See Bedaux, , The Reality, 85–87; de Jongh, E., Portretten van echt en trouw: Huwelijk en gezin in de Nederlandse kunst van de zeventiende eeuw (Zwolle, 1986), 295–99.Google Scholar

22. On De Witte's Family Portrait, see Steingräber, Erich, Die alte Pinakothek München (Munich, 1985), 571. Bedaux, , The Reality, 84; Alpers, , L'art, 379–86. For seventeenth-century emblems, see Cats, Jacob, Al de werken van Jacob Cats: Met eene Levensbeschryving van den Dichter (Schiedam, 1876; 1656).Google Scholar

23. Bedaux, , The reality, 89–93, 103, 127–32; Alpers, , L'art ; Durantini, , The Child, 53–54, on The Family at Meal, 3.Google Scholar

24. Steen, Jan (1626–79), The Feast of St. Nicholas, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Schama, , Embarrassment, 184–85; Brown, , “… Niet ledighs”, 156; Schotel, , Het Oud-Hollandsch, 193–213, 356–63; Durantini, , The Child, 80–85; Groenendijk, , De Nadere Reformatie, 154, on Wittewrongel.Google Scholar

25. Steen, Jan (1626–79), The Merry Family (“As the Old Sing, so Pipe the Young”), 1668, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Durantini, , The Child, 59–61; Perry Chapman, H., “Jan Steen's Household Revisited,” Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 20 (1990/1991): 183–96; Schama, , Embarrassment ; Brown, , “… Niet ledighs”, 83–88, on the relationship between Dutch proverbs and Dutch painting.Google Scholar

26. Ochtervelt, Jacob (1634–82), Street Musicians in the Doorway of a House, 1665, Saint Louis Art Museum. Most authors have defended this positive interpretation of the occurrence of musicians. See Schama, , Embarrassment, 570–71; Sutton, , Masters, 278–79. Durantini, , The Child, 289, 294, has offered another interpretation: “The strict Dutch Calvinists condemned music for the very reasons which are alluded to in the art—it wastes times and leads to other sins, especially that of lust.” This was true for the strict Dutch Calvinists but was not suggested by Ochtervelt's painting. See also De Jongh, , Tot lering, 202–5.Google Scholar

27. Brueghel, Pieter (1525–69), Children's Games, 1560, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. On games and toys, see Peeters, Harrie F. M., Kind en jeugdige in het begin van de moderne tijd, c. 1500–1650 (Meppel, 1966), ch. 2; Ariès, , L'enfant, part 1, ch. 4; Durantini, , The Child, 179. On Brueghel, ibid., 181; Brown, , “… Niet ledighs”, 152; Snow, E., “‘Meaning’ in Children's Games: On the Limitations of the Iconographic Approach to Brueghel,” Representations 1 (1983): 27–60; Schotel, , Het Oud-Hollandsch, ch. 9. Although Schama (Embarrassment, 500) rightly argued that the moralizing or playful interpretations should not be mutually exclusive when one looks at seventeenth-century genre painting, his proposal to use a seventeenth-century emblematic text from Jacob Cats to decode this sixteenth-century painting, transforming Breughel into a Calvinistic moralizing Jacob Cats avant la lettre, is anachronistic and unconvincing.Google Scholar

28. Durantini, , The Child, 191; De Jongh, , Tot lering, 199; Dekker, and Groenendijk, , “The Republic,” for an argument against Schama about the influence of Protestantism in other countries besides the Dutch Republic. Wittewrongel, cited by Groenendijk, , De Nadere Reformatie, 145. Wittewrongel's ideas are based on texts of English Puritans, especially William Gouge; Schama, , Embarrassment, 498; Durantini, , The Child, 176, 185.Google Scholar

29. Borch, Gerard Ter (1617–81), Boy Picking Fleas off His Dog, 1655, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek, Munich. Durantini, , The Child, 29, 267–68. Steingräber, (Alte, 77) defended both interpretations, basing his argument on the ambiguous character of Dutch genre painting.Google Scholar

30. Schalcken, Godfried (1643–1706), Boy Fishing, Staatliche Museen, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. De Jongh, , Tot lering, 219; on the painter see Brown, , “… Niet ledighs”, 230; and Sutton, , Masters, 299.Google Scholar

31. van der Werff, Adriaen (1659–1722), Playing Children by a Hercules Group, 1687, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek, Munich; Cats, , Al de werken, 626, Invallende Gedachten (Thoughts and suggestions); Durantini, , The Child, 207–8, 262 (on the bird), 34 (on the cat), 206–7 (on the knuckle-bones game); De Jongh, , Tot lering, 281; Steingräber, , Alte, 562–63.Google Scholar

32. van Mieris, Frans (1635–81), Boy Blowing Bubbles, 1663, Mauritshuis, The Hague. Brown, , “… Niet ledighs”, 38. Considering this theme, not this particular painting, Schama (Embarrassment, 512–16) was rather speculative. He combined twentieth-century Lux advertisements showing children in the snow with seventeenth-century Dutch genre painting. At first sight, he defended a highly symbolic interpretation: “The bubble, then, was a perfect symbol for childhood as the Dutch saw it: an image that reflected both levity and gravity, that floated like childish reveries and popped as childhood itself had to end. It was a metaphor of both childhood and maturity, of play and of self-instruction.” However, only some sentences later he undermined this interpretation: “How much of this semantic cunning endured along with the persistent image is extremely difficult to gauge. The images that do persist, especially in the second half of the seventeenth century, seem to linger more innocently on the dreamy, leisured, playful aspects of bubbles, baubles and balloons, on air and shimmering iridescence, than on its more somber connotations.” Google Scholar

33. Boekholt, P. Th. F. M. and de Booy, Engelina P., Geschiedenis van de school in Nederland vanaf de middeleeuwen tot aan de huidige tijd (Assen, 1987); de Booy, Engelina P., De weldaet der scholen: Het plattelandsonderwijs in de provincie Utrecht van 1580 tot het begin der 19e eeuw (Utrecht, 1977); van Deursen, A. Th., Mensen, 137–47; de Vries, Jan and van der Woude, A. M., Nederland, 1500–1815: De eerste ronde van moderne economische groei (Amsterdam, 1995), emphasized the importance of schooling and human capital for the economic growth of the northern Netherlands, and the high incidence of literacy, 210 and Figure 5.1.Google Scholar

34. Steen, Jan (1626–79), Unruly School, c. 1670, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh; see Brown, , “… Niet ledighs”, 152; De Jongh, , Tot lering, 247; Durantini, , The Child, 154 (on Steen) and 130 (on the theme); Chapman, , “Jan Steen's Household.” Schama (Embarrassment, 558), however, overestimated the parodic tradition in saying “that most genre paintings of schoolrooms, again following the example of Bruegel's engraving The Ass at School, are parodies of correct instruction.” Google Scholar

35. van Ostade, Adriaen (1610–85), The Schoolmaster, 1662, Louvre, Paris; Brown, , “… Niet ledighs”, 152, with a purely realistic interpretation; Durantini, , The Child, 139.Google Scholar

36. Dou, Gerard (1613–75), The Evening School, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Brown, , “… Niet ledighs”, 152; Durantini, , The Child, 106–9, 154, 157–58.Google Scholar