Every specialist in the Northern Baroque period knows that Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627-1678) was the principal teacher of Arnold Houbraken (1660-1719) and that both artists wrote important books about art. They had a lot more in common, however. Both men were born in the city of Dordrecht, came from a Mennonite background, married outside the Community and joined the Dutch Reformed Church instead. Both had the benefit of a great teacher, this being Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) in the case of Van Hoogstraten. Both became authors, each with a significant literary production, including both prose and poetry, beyond his chief work on art. Both were ambitious, energetic, versatile and successful artists who moved up in the world. Though Houbraken did not end up rich like his teacher, his history paintings, genre pieces, portraits, etchings and inventions for the book trade were well-enough received to allow him to maintain a large family in enviable style, first in Dordrecht and then in Amsterdam.

Samuel van Hoogstraten and Arnold Houbraken were also very different artists and men. Van Hoogstraten's father was a silversmith and painter, whereas Houbraken's progenitor was a mere cloth cutter. Van Hoogstraten learned French, German, English and, possibly, Latin, whereas Houbraken scarcely progressed beyond Dutch. Van Hoogstraten had no children; Houbraken fathered ten of them. Van Hoogstraten travelled to Vienna and Rome; Houbraken got no farther inland than Nijmegen. Van Hoogstraten prospered in London for five years; Houbraken languished there for nine months only. Finally, Van Hoogstraten became a reflective but mainstream Calvinist, whereas Houbraken grew into one of the most radical free thinkers of his time. In fact, it was mainly to evade the ire of the Church Council of Amsterdam that he abandoned his family and fled to London in the summer of 1713.

The literary profiles of the two men also differ substantially. Van Hoogstraten's Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst: anders de zichtbaere werelt (Introduction to the Academy of Painting: or the Visible World) concentrates on theory, whereas De groote schouburgh der nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (The Great Theater of Netherlandish Painters and Paintresses) leans to biography. Beyond that, Van Hoogstraten wrote literary works, including plays, whereas Houbraken penned theological and emblematic ones. Despite such differences, however, each man spent his last years slaving his way into the grave, trying in vain to complete his magnum opus.