Like Rubens, Rembrandt numbered few women among his imitators.  The women of his day and country affected pleasing delineations of superficial motives, and Rembrandt’s earnestness and intensity were seemingly above their appreciation—­certainly far above their artistic powers.

A little later so many women painted delicate and insipid subjects that I have not space even for their names.  A critic has said that the Dutch school “became a nursery for female talent.”  It may have reached the Kindergarten stage, but went no farther.

Flower painting attained great excellence in the seventeenth century.  The most elaborate masters in this art were the brothers De Heem, Willem Kalf, Abraham Mignon, and Jan van Huysum.  Exquisite as the pictures by these masters are, Maria van Oosterwyck and Rachel Ruysch disputed honors with them, and many other women excelled in this delightful art.

An interesting feature in art at this time was the intimate association of men and women artists and the distinction of women thus associated.

Gerard Terburg, whose pictures now have an enormous value, had two sisters, Maria and Gezina, whose genre pictures were not unworthy of comparison with the works of their famous brother.  Gottfried Schalken, remarkable for his skill in the representation of scenes by candle light, was scarcely more famous than his sister Maria.  Eglon van der Neer is famous for his pictures of elegant women in marvellous satin gowns.  He married Adriana Spilberg, a favorite portrait painter.  The daughters of the eminent engraver Cornelius Visscher, Anna and Maria, were celebrated for their fine etching on glass, and by reason of their poems and their scholarly acquirements they were called the “Dutch Muses,” and were associated with the learned men of their day.  This list, though incomplete, suggests that the co-education of artists bore good fruit in their co-operation in their profession.

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In England, while there was a growing interest in painting, the standard was that of foreign schools, especially the Dutch.  Foreign artists found a welcome and generous patronage at the English Court.  Mary Beale and Anne Carlisle are spoken of as English artists, and a few English women were miniaturists.  Among these was Susannah Penelope Gibson, daughter of Richard Gibson, the Dwarf.  While these women were not wanting in artistic taste, they were little more than copyists of the Dutch artists with whom they had associated.

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In the early years of the seventeenth century there were a number of Danish women who were painters, engravers, and modellers in wax.  The daughter of King Christian IV., Elenora Christina, and her daughter, Helena Christina, were reputable artists.  The daughter of Christian V., Sophie Hedwig, made a reputation as a portrait, landscape, and flower painter, which extended beyond her own country; and Anna Crabbe painted a series of portraits of Danish princes, and added to them descriptive verses of her own composition.