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.