The Delft School is a category of mid-17th century Dutch Golden Age painting

Dutch Golden Age painting

Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history generally spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years War for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republic was the most prosperous nation in Europe, and led European trade,...

 named after its main base, Delft

Delft

Delft is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland , the Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam and The Hague....

. It is best known for genre painting

Genre painting

Genre works, also called genre scenes or genre views, are pictorial representations in any of various media that represent scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, and street scenes. Such representations may be realistic, imagined, or...

: images of domestic life, views of households, church interiors, courtyards, squares and the streets of that city. Carel Fabritius

Carel Fabritius

Carel Fabritius was a Dutch painter and one of Rembrandt's most gifted pupils.-Biography:Fabritius was born in Beemster, the ten-year old polder, as the son of a schoolteacher. Initially he worked as a carpenter . In the early 1640s he studied at Rembrandt's studio in Amsterdam, along with his...

 and Nicolaes Maes

Nicolaes Maes

Nicolaes Maes, also known as Nicolaes Maas was a Dutch Golden Age painter of genre and portraits.-Biography:...

 are seen as the originators of these localised specialties in the 1640s that were continued in the 1650s by Pieter de Hooch

Pieter de Hooch

Pieter de Hooch was a genre painter during the Dutch Golden Age. He was a contemporary of Dutch Master Jan Vermeer, with whom his work shared themes and style.-Biography:...

 and Johannes Vermeer

Johannes Vermeer

Johannes, Jan or Johan Vermeer was a Dutch painter who specialized in exquisite, domestic interior scenes of middle class life. Vermeer was a moderately successful provincial genre painter in his lifetime...

. Vermeer is the most famous of these painters today. The architectural interiors of Gerard Houckgeest

Gerard Houckgeest

Gerard Houckgeest was a Dutch Golden Age painter of architectural scenes and church interiors.-Biography:...

, Emanuel de Witte

Emanuel de Witte

Emanuel de Witte was a Dutch perspective painter. In contrast to Pieter Jansz Saenredam, who emphasized architectural accuracy, De Witte was more concerned with the atmosphere of his interiors. Though few in number, de Witte also produced genre paintings.-Life:De Witte was born in Alkmaar and...

 and Hendrick Cornelisz. van Vliet

Hendrick Cornelisz. van Vliet

Hendrick Cornelisz van Vliet was a Dutch Golden Age painter remembered mostly for his church interiors.-Biography:...

 are also notable contributions. Besides the genres most closely associated with Delft painters, artists in the city continued to produced still life

Still life

A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...

 and history painting

History painting

History painting is a genre in painting defined by subject matter rather than an artistic style, depicting a moment in a narrative story, rather than a static subject such as a portrait...

s, portraits for patrons and the court, and decorative pieces of art that reflect more general tendencies in Dutch art of the period.