Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Paragons of Virtue is the first systematic analysis of domestic paintings, which were among the most popular and endearing images produced by Dutch artists during the Golden Century. Focusing on their broader function and significance within Dutch culture, this study has made extensive use of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century family treatises that are important sources for understanding these paintings. These hortatory texts are significant, because they reflect contemporary attitudes towards women as they are paradigmatically presented as maidens, housewives skilled in the administration of household affairs, as attentive mothers, and as pious widows. In short, family literature corroborates the existence of general ideals as well as specific ideas about women and domesticity as expressed through art. Through its rich source material and the paintings themselves, Paragons of Virtue sheds further light on the position of women in seventeenth-century Dutch society and on the critical role that art played in early modern Europe in espousing and maintaining the patriarchal status quo.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface
• List of Illustrations
• Introduction
• Notes to the introduction
• 1 Maeght and Vryster
• Notes to chapter 1
• 2 Bruyt and Vrouwe
• Notes to chapter 2
• 3 Moeder
• Notes to chapter 3
• 4 Weduwe
• Notes to chapter 4
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Illustarted captions.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Jacob Cats's most popular manual of domestic behavior, Houwelijck (1625), provides the organization for this well-considered, lucid monographic study of the depiction of states of a woman's life. By prescribing proper accomplishments for a woman's roles from cradle to grave, Cats presents a positive model for a woman in Dutch culture; this nurturing and spiritually sustaining model proclaims, maintains, and reinforces the patriarchal nature of that society. The author correlates Cats's book with Dutch imagery, and deepens the meaning and influence of that text by surveying other 17th-century publications, especially emblem books. He takes a temperate course through the thicket of symbolic and allegorical interpretation. The extent to which Cats's prescriptions were followed is hard to measure; similarly elusive is an estimate of the mix of ideal and real behavior presented in Houwelijck and Dutch imagery. This study belongs to the purviews of several major disciplines: art history; the field of word/image relations; women's studies; and the history of the family. Highly recommended for academic and public libraries. Advanced undergraduate; graduate; faculty; general. A. Golahny; Lycoming College