Men at work in Dutch art, or keeping one's nose to the grindstone

1. One anomaly within the category of artisan-at-work is beyond the scope of this study, namely, the artist in his studio, a subject that attracted many seventeenth-century Dutch painters. Nor will portraits of artisans bearing attributes of their occupations be discussed because in them the men are not presented as physically involved in their trades. On the latter, see L. de Vries, "Portraits of People at Work," in Opstellen voor Hans Locher, ed. J. de Jong (Groningen: Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, 1990), 52-59; and H. Perry Chapman, Wouter Th. Koek, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Jan Steen, Painter and Storyteller, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1996, cat. no. 8.

2. A. T. van Deursen, Plain Lives in a Golden Age: Popular Culture, Religion and Society in Seventeenth-Century Holland, trans. Maarten Ultee (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), is a good example.

3. For the most recent discussion of images of labor, see Annette de Vries, Ingelijst Werk: De verbeelding van arbeid en beroep in de vroegmoderne Nederlanden (Zwolle: Waanders, 2004). Christopher Brown devotes a brief, though helpful, section on depictions of labor in Images of a Golden Past (New York: Abbeville Press, 1984), 88-100. See also Egbert Haverkamp Begemann's discussion of the dearth of images of labor in seventeenth-century Dutch painting as a whole in "Jacob van Ruisdael's Interest in Construction," in Shop Talk: Studies in Honor of Seymour Slive, Presented on His Seventy-fifth Birthday, ed. A. J. Adams et al. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Art Museums, 1995), 97-99. Other scholars have considered early modern images of work as embodiments of the Protestant work ethic, though this stance has recently been questioned in light of the general reassessment of Max Weber's notion of the work ethic. See Ilja Veldman, "Images of Labor and Diligence in Sixteenth-Century Netherlandish Prints: Was the Work Ethic Rooted in Civic Morality or Protestantism?" Simiolus 21 (1992): 227-64. Nevertheless, de Vries and Veldman interpret the artisan paintings primarily as images of industriousness.

4. On domestic imagery, see Mariet Westermann, "'Costly and Curious, Full off pleasure and home contentment': Making Home in the Dutch Republic," in Art and Home: Dutch Interiors in the Age of Rembrandt, ed. Westermann, exh. cat., Newark Museum, Newark, N.J. (Zwolle: Waanders, 2001), esp. 74; and Wooncultuur in de Nederlanden / The Art of Home in the Netherlands, 1500-1800, ed. J. de Jong et al., Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 51 (2001).

5. Angelika Lasius, Quiringh van Brekelenkam (Beukenlaan: Davaco, 1992).

6. On Ter Borch's painting, the most recent commentary can be found in Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Gerard ter Borch, with contributions by Alison McNeil Kettering, Arie Wallert, and Marjorie E. Wieseman, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2004, cat. no. 24 (by Kettering). For earlier discussions, see S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1959-60), vol. 1, 90-92, vol. 2, cat. no. 100; H. R. Hoetink, Gerard ter Borch, Zwolle 1617-Deventer 1681, exh. cat., Mauritshuis, The Hague, 1974, 114-15; and Peter Sutton, Masters of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Genre Painting, exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1984, 142-43, cat. no. 8.