Pieter de Grebber

[2] He was descended from a Catholic and artistic family, the De Grebbers, originally from Waterland, and his sister Maria later became the mother-in-law of Gabriel Metsu.

He was a friend of the priest and musicologist Jan Albertszoon Ban, and had a poem set to music by the Haarlem composer Cornelis Padbrué.

It was then handed - via the English ambassador in the Republic, Sir Dudley Carleton - to king Charles I. Pieter got important commissions not only in Haarlem, but also from the stadholder Frederik Hendrik.

He was, together with Salomon de Bray, the forerunner and first peak of the "Haarlem classicism" school, producing paintings characterized by a well-organized clarity and light tints.

[citation needed] Almost all of these rules are taken from Karel van Mander's own Mannerist Schilder-boeck, in which history painting was presented as the highest of the hierarchy of genres.