This book features Dutch, Flemish, Early Netherlandish, and German paintings and works on paper from the fifteenth through the eighteenth century, including preeminent names such as Peter Paul Rubens and Rembrandt van Rijn, as well as lesser-known artists such as Sebastian Stoskopff and Johannes Verspronck. Illuminating one of the finest collections of Northern European art in the United States, the book traces the histories of ninety-five extraordinary paintings and drawings, shedding new light on the artistic significance and material properties of these objects. Works of art that emphasize the humanity of their subjects—and the capacity of oil paint to render these qualities almost achingly real—is a throughline that unites the paintings featured here, from the tender gaze of Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Boy (1655–60) to the freshly cut flowers and curious insects in Rachel Ruysch’s Nosegay on a Marble Plinth (ca. 1695), to the recently conserved masterpieces Adam and Eve (ca. 1530) by Lucas Cranach.