Dutch painting dating from Holland's Golden Age was an exceptional event in the history of art that continues to hold the world's admiration. The Golden Age - Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century is a modern and varied historiography that not only complies with scholarly insights but also makes fascinating reading for anyone wishing to become acquainted with a period that was so interesting in terms of its artistic achievements. Justifiably known as the Golden Age, this period was one of the most intensely creative periods of artistic activity the world has ever seen. Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, Ruisdael and Jan Steen are a few of the more famous great Dutch painters of this era. Hundreds of other, lesser-known artists of merit were also painting in Holland at this time. More than 400 painters are discussed in a comprehensive manner. For each painter, there is a representative work. The reader is presented with no fewer than 1117 reproductions, seventy-four of which are in colour. There unfolds a rich fabric of seventeenth-century Dutch society in all its amazing diversity: riflemen and regents, rich merchants and their wives, ordinary burghars in their Sunday best - all going about their everyday activities or amusing themselves with sports and games - the bustle of the trading centres and harbours contrasting with life in rural settings as well as shipping to faraway regions.