 |
| Lodewijk van der Helst Portrait of Adriana Hinlopen 1667 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
 |
| Adriaen Hanneman Portrait of Richard Steward 1651 oil on canvas All Souls College, University of Oxford |
 |
| Nicolaes Maes Portrait of a Woman ca. 1670-80 oil on panel Ulster Museum, Belfast |
 |
| Jan Lievens Portrait of a Man ca. 1650 oil on canvas Harvard Art Museums |
 |
| Hendrick Pot Portrait of a Woman ca. 1635 oil on panel Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio |
 |
| Gerard ter Borch Portrait of a Man ca. 1668-69 oil on canvas Guildhall Art Gallery, London |
 |
| Jan Albertsz Rootius Portrait of Agatha van Neck 1658 oil on canvas Musée d'Ixelles, Brussels |
 |
| Pieter van der Werff Portrait of a Gentleman ca. 1680 oil on canvas Victoria Art Gallery, Bath |
 |
| Abraham van Westerveld Portrait of Cornelisz de Witte ca. 1650-60 oil on panel private collection |
 |
| Abraham van Westerveld Portrait of Lieutenant-Admiral Cornelis Tromp in Roman Garb ca. 1670-90 oil on panel Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
 |
| Willem van der Vliet Portrait of a Woman with a Crucifix before 1642 oil on panel private collection |
 |
| Willem van der Vliet Portrait of Maria Jorisdr Pijnaecker 1626 oil on panel Museum Prinsenhof, Delft |
 |
| Willem van der Vliet Portrait of Willem de Langue 1626 oil on panel Museum Prinsenhof, Delft |
 |
| Willem van der Vliet Portrait of Suitbertus Purmerent 1631 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
 |
| Willem van der Vliet Portrait of a Little Boy 1638 oil on panel Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
"The assumption of portraits' transparency to their sitters' physiognomies follows seventeenth-century Dutch theorists who describe portraits as transcriptions of an objective reality, as unmediated visual analogues for actual persons. It lies behind Karel van Mander's disparagement of portraiture in these oft-quoted lines from his life of the portraitist Michiel van Miereveldt, painter of Delft, who "from among other talents with which Nature abundantly endowed him, chose portrait painting. In our Netherlands there is this deficiency or unfortunate situation, especially in these present times, that there is little work to be had that requires composition so as to give the youngsters and painters the opportunity to become excellent at histories, figures and nudes through practice. For it is mostly portraits that they get the opportunity to paint; so that most of them, because of the allure of profit, or for their survival, usually take this side-road of art (that is, portrait painting) and set off without having time or inclination to seek out or follow the road of history and figures that leads to the highest perfection."
"Van Mander grudgingly admitted, however, that because it depicted the noble subject of the human body, portraiture should be accorded at least some respect: "One can also make something worthwhile from a portrait: that a face, after all the most important part of the human body, contains quite enough so as to be able to disclose and reveal the quality and efficacy of art." At the end of the century, Samuel van Hoogstraten disdained "the portrait makers – who can render reasonably good likenesses, and properly imitate eyes, noses and mouths – I wouldn't even place beyond or above the first level of painting."
– Ann Jensen Adams, from Looking at Seventeenth-Century Art: Realism Reconsidered (Cambridge University Press, 1997)