Elegant ladies in satin robes, maids wearing starched bonnets, and pensive scholars immersed in study--we might think we know a great deal about life and culture in Holland's Golden Age. Yet, the ordered world of the Dutch burghers shown in Senses and Sins is inconsistent with our perceptions of the past. The lady of the house drinks wine in the middle of the day, lap dogs copulate on spotless marble floors, and a rough-hewn farmer grimaces in disgust. This book presents the diverse themes and meanings of the school of painting that is so inadequately described as "genre," and, through works by various masters, this potentionally vague style achieves a much stronger definition.