Paintings from the 17th-century “Golden Age” of Dutch art are breathtaking in their clarity, quality of light and degree of detail. During this time, painters such Johannes Vermeer, Gerrit Dou, Pieter de Hooch, Gabriel Metsu, Gerard ter Borch and Jan Steen created a body of work that has endured for more than 300 years.
Referred to by the 19th-century term “genre paintings,” they depict primarily interiors: café and brothel scenes (always with a moralistic tone); maids or women doing their domestic chores; and women in beautiful gowns writing or receiving love letters, looking at themselves (or us) in the mirror, or playing an instrument. Many of these subjects were repeated over and over again, and painters borrowed and stole compositions, figures and ideas from one another in their quest to produce even better works of art.
via Whisker Therapy