SPOTLIGHT STORIES

How Dutch Golden Age Painters Tricked the Eye

7 top "trompe l'oeil" paintings

During the famous Golden Age of Dutch art, artists of the Netherlands excelled at creating illusionistic paintings, typically referred to as trompe l'oeil or "trick/fool the eye". Take a closer look at these "Top 7 Trompe l'oeil" masterpieces. Although their makers' are no longer household names, these seven works represent some of the best examples of visual trickery from seventeenth-century Holland.

1. Flower Still Life, 1614 by Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder (collection: The J. Paul Getty Museum)

2. Trompe-l`oeil Still-Life,1666 - 1678 by Samuel van Hoogstraten (collection: Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe)

3. Trompe l'oeil Still Life of Board Partition with Letter Rack and Music Book, 1668, by Cornelius Norbertus Gijsbrechts (collection: Statens Museum for Kunst)

4. Vanitas - Still Life with Books and Manuscripts and a Skull, 1663 by Edwaert Collier [Collyer] (collection: The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo)

5. Still Life, circa 1696 by Edwaert Colyer (collection: Indianapolis Museum of Art)

6. Vanitas Flower Still Life, circa 1656-1657 by Willem van Aelst (collection: North Carolina Museum of Art)

7. Treasurers' papers and documents,1656 by Cornelis Brizé (collection: Royal Palace Amsterdam)

Learn more about the Dutch Golden Age.

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