The political events of the reign of Philip II. of Spain, the mistaken, mischievous, and oppressive policy he adopted with regard to his territory in the Netherlands, and the contempt with which he treated his Dutch subjects, soon alienated their sympathies; but the Duke of Alva by his harshness and bigotry incited them to frenzy. When he set forth in 1567, all hope of peace and mercy fled before him, and within a short period his tyranny and ferocity fanned the flame of rebellion, which after a struggle of eighty years was to end in the Peace of Münster of 1648. In that year Spain ignominiously surrendered, and the independence of the northern Netherlands was recognised. During the long period which elapsed between the Union of Utrecht in 1579 and the negotiations at Osnabrück and Münster in 1648 must have been destroyed innumerable religious pictures, the loss of which renders it almost impossible for us to estimate the full significance of artistic endeavour in Holland in the closing years of the sixteenth century. A new era in Dutch history, social life and art was beginning to open out by the year 1612, when Abraham Blomaert (1564-1651) painted and signed his very large _Nativity_ (No. 2327), which was formerly attributed to Bernardino Fassolo. Blomaert’s _Portrait of a Man_ (No. 2327A) is also a signed work. HISTORY AND PORTRAIT PAINTERS Blomaert’s contemporary, Michiel Jansz Mierevelt (1567-1641), who was at one time Court painter to the Princes of Orange at The Hague, and was with undue flattery hailed as the “New Xeuxis of Delft,” is represented by the _Portrait of Olden Barnevelt_ (No. 2465) and three other portraits, one of which (No. 2466) is in a very bad state. Stiff but characteristic is the _Portrait of a Woman_ (No. 2534), which was painted by Jan van Ravesteyn (1572-1657) in 1633, while his initials are also found on a panel (No. 2535) which was commissioned of him in the following year. Although Gerard Verspronck (1600-1651) was many years his junior, and in 1641, in the period of his maturity, achieved the _Portrait of a Lady_ (No. 2576A), the top corners of which have been added, he painted on the lines of tradition, and showed little originality. He came under the influence of Frans Hals, under whose name his pictures often pass. CORNELIS JANSSEN