Two different Systems of Painting in the North.--The Flemish School represented by Rubens.--The Dutch by Rembrandt.--Characteristics of Rubens’ Style.--No female Disciples.--Unsuited to feminine Study.--Some Women Artists of the first Part of the Century.--Features of the Dutch School.--A wide Field for female Energy and Industry.--Painting _de genre_.--Its Peculiarities.--State of Things favorable to female Enterprise.--Early Efforts in Genre-painting.--Few Women among Rembrandt’s immediate Disciples.--Genre-painting becomes adapted to female Talent.--“The Dutch Muses.”--Another Woman Architect.--Dutch Women Painters and Engravers.--Maria Schalken and others.--“The second Schurmann.”--Margaretta Godewyck.--The Painter-poet.--Anna Maria Schurmann.--Wonderful Genius for Languages.--Early Acquirements.--Her Scholarship and Position among the learned.--A Painter, Sculptor, and Engraver.--Called “the Wonder of Creation.”--Royal and princely Visitors.--Journey to Germany.--Embraces the religious Tenets of Labadie.--His Doctrines.--Joins his Band.--Collects his Followers, and leads them into Friesland.--Poverty and Death.--Visit of William Penn to her.--Her Portrait.--Her female Contemporaries in Art.--Flower-painting in the Netherlands.--Its Pioneers.--Maria Van Oosterwyck.--Her Birth and Education.--Early Productions.--Celebrated at foreign Courts.--Presents from imperial Friends.--Enormous Prices for her Pictures.--Royal Purchasers.--The quiet Artist at work.--The Lover’s Visit.--The Lover’s Trial and Failure.--Style of her Painting.--Rachel Ruysch.--The greatest Flower-painter.--Early Instruction.--Spread of her Fame.--Domestic Cares.--Professional Honors.--Invitations to Courts.--Her Patron, the Elector.--Her Works in old Age.--Her Character.--Rarity of her Paintings.--Personal Appearance. While the academicians and naturalists of the Italian schools contended through the seventeenth century, and while in France and Spain the works of art exhibited as great contrasts, modified in each country by national peculiarities, two different systems in the North came into notice. These, as in the time of Von Eyck, had great influence upon the development of art in other lands besides that where they originated. One was the Flemish school, represented by Rubens; the other the Dutch, in which Rembrandt was regarded as the mighty master.