[jimvdv]

I agree with you on the subjects are boring rich people, if we judge it with today standards. For the time it was actually quite unique that (upper) middle class people could get their portrait done, and not just nobles.

I like to think of it as part of a period of history where the merchants start to gain power from the aristocracy and that shows in what gets passed down to us.

[JJMcJ]

> (upper) middle class people

It reflects a great change in Western society, which really began to flourish first in the Netherlands, where the merchant and industrial classes began to be dominant, and were growing sick of pretending it wasn't true.

Mostly in Britain these days, we see the final pretenses of the nobility on display.

[ghaff]

Holland is really where the wealthy merchant class first became dominant in Europe--and was generally not subservient to the nobility as in other other countries.