PETER DE HOOGH (1629-1677) decidedly belongs to the numerous artistic posterity of Rembrandt, possibly through Karel Fabritius, and stands nearer to Vermeer and to Maes, than to any other painter. His biography can only be gathered from the occasional dates on his pictures, extending from 1658 to 1670. Although he impresses the eye by the same effects as Maes, yet he is also very different from him. He has not his humour, and seldom his kindliness, and his figures, which are either playing cards, smoking or drinking, or engaged in the transaction of some household duty,--with faces that say but little--have generally only the interest of a peaceful or jovial existence. If Maes takes the lead in warm lighting, Peter de Hoogh may be considered _par excellence_ the painter of full and clear sunlight. If, again, Maes shows us his figures almost exclusively in interiors, Peter de Hoogh places them most frequently in the open air--in courtyards. In the representation of the poetry of light, and in that marvellous brilliancy and clearness with which he calls it forth in various distances till the background is reached, which is generally illumined by a fresh beam, no other master can compare with him. His prevailing local colour is red, repeated with greater delicacy in various planes of distance. This colour fixes the rest of the scale. His touch is of great delicacy; his impasto admirable. GERARD TERBURG, born at Zwol 1608, died 1681, learned painting under his father, and when still young visited Germany and Italy, painting numerous portraits on a small scale, and occasionally the size of life. But his place in the history of art is owing principally to a number of pictures, seldom representing more than three, and often only one figure, taken from the wealthier classes, in which great elegance of costume, and of all accompanying circumstances, is rendered with the finest keeping, and with a highly delicate but by no means over-smooth execution. He may be considered as the originator of this class of pictures, in which, after his example, several other Dutch painters distinguished themselves. With him the chief mass of light is generally formed by the white satin dress of a lady, which gives the tone for the prevailing cool harmony of the picture. Among his pictures we occasionally find some which, taken successively, represent several different moments of one scene. Thus in the Dresden Gallery, there are two good pictures: the one of an officer writing a letter, while a trumpter waits for it; the other of a girl in white satin washing her hands in a basin held before her by a maid-servant; while at Munich, is another fine work, in which the trumpeter is offering the young lady the letter, who owing to the presence of the maid, who evidently disapproves, is uncertain whether to take the missive. Finally, in the Amsterdam Gallery, the celebrated picture known by the title of _Conseil paternel_, furnishes