Class Society

During the 17th century, painting saw a great upswing in the Netherlands in view of the country’s strong economic development. Owing to its very realistic representations, genre painting was highly valued by wealthy citizens and merchants. Particularly popular were the elegant, atmospheric interiors and domestic scenes by the Delft fine painters around Johannes Vermeer, Pieter de Hooch and Gerard ter Borch, along with the exaggerated, ironical depictions of the peasant milieu and the excessive pleasure activities of simple people by Jan Steen or David Teniers.

With Class Society. Everyday Life as Seen by Dutch Masters, scheduled from 26 November 2021 to 27 March 2022, the Hamburger Kunsthalle is devoting a comprehensive show comprising some 150 works – paintings, drawings, prints, photographs and videos – to a chapter of an extremely multifaceted epoch of European art history. The exhibition is primarily based on the Hamburger Kunsthalle’s superb holdings of Dutch 17-th century paintings, which at the same time are the main emphasis of the museum’s Old Masters Collection and are meant to be acknowledged accordingly with this show. Another essential part of the presentation is dedicated to overarching aspects and, based on socio-cultural developments and political factors, it draws up a characteristic image of Dutch society in the 17th century that the selected artists seem to have portrayed in their paintings.

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