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| Jacob van Ruisdael View of grain-fields with distant town ca. 1670 oil on canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Gerrit van Honthorst Childhood of Christ ca. 1620 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
"Back in the seventeenth century, when alchemy was being practiced in every little town, painters and alchemists shared many substances – linseed oil, spirits, brilliant minerals for colors – and painters' manuals sometimes used the language of alchemy, calling for alchemical ingredients such as vitriol, sal ammoniac, and blood. Realgar and Orpiment are pigments that can be found in Renaissance paintings (they are bright orange and warm yellow) and they were also favorite alchemical ingredients because they yield arsenic and sulfur. . . . Artists have made paints from a pretty red mineral called cinnabar, which is usually found in an impure state, 'admixed with rocky gangue' as one author says. Because it is hard to purify, it is more common to make red paint out of Vermilion, which is the same chemical synthesized from mercury and sulfur. Mercury and sulfur are the two principal substances in alchemy, and even the method for making Vermilion has its alchemical connections. In the Dutch technique, mercury and melted sulfur were mashed together to make a black clotted substance called Ethiops mineral or Moor. When the Moor was put in an oven and heated, it gave off vapor that condensed onto the surface of clay tablets. The Moor is black, but its condensed vapor is bright red – a typical piece of alchemical magic – and it could be scraped off and ground into Vermilion for paint. So Vermilion is an artist's pigment, composed of two of the most important alchemical materials, and synthesized according to a method that was used by Greek alchemists."
– from What Painting Is by James Elkins (Routledge, 1999)
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| Samuel van Hoogstraten Boy looking through a window ca. 1645-50 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Jan de Baen Portrait of a Lady 17th century oil on canvas private collection |
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| Jacob Adriaensz Backer Granida and Daifilo ca. 1635 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Jacob Adriaensz Backer Diana and Nymphs at rest 1649 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Rembrandt Abraham and the Three Angels ca. 1635-45 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Gerbrand van den Eeckhout Abraham and the Three Angels 1656 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Emanuel De Witte Capriccio - Rome 1664 canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Anthonie de Lorme and Ludolf de Jongh Church interior at night 1660 oil on canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Ludolf Backhuyssen Ships in distress in a raging storm ca. 1690 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Pieter Wouwerman Landscape with deer hunt ca. 1650 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Willem van Aelst Hunting Still-life ca. 1665 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Jan van der Heyden Crossroads in a wood 1660s oil on canvas Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |