THERE ARE NUMEROUS ESTIMATES about exactly how many paintings were produced during the Dutch golden age. While it may be impossible to reckon even approximately it is not unreasonable to suggest that perhaps between five and ten million pictures were painted to service the demands of seventeenth-century Netherlanders.
After all, by 1650, Amsterdammers were per capita the wealthiest citizens in Europe and the trickle-down effects were real. In the 1640s, an English merchant-traveller named Peter Mundy was startled by the omnipresence of paintings in the new nation: “Butchers and bakers … yeahave some picture or other by their Forge or in their stalle.” The homes of many middling sorts were hung with pictures in a profusion that would still be unusual today.
