Nicolaes Maes portrayed this unknown Dutch matron standing outdoors in a walled garden before a dark yet shimmering golden drape that wraps around a large marble column. The dark sky with its bands of red and orange light near the horizon signifies that it is evening, a time of day when one might imagine a woman presenting herself in such a setting in formal attire. As she gazes out at the viewer, she rests her right forearm on the base of the column while she gracefully fingers the deep folds of her rust-red velvety dress with her left hand. A sweeping diaphanous shawl covers her décolletage and softens her form. A double strand of pearls and elegant dangling earrings reinforce the impression of wealth and good breeding that her stern expression and strict bearing amply convey.
The woman’s elegant clothing reflects contemporary fashion in the Netherlands during the 1670s, but is nonetheless generalized and simplified to give the sitter a more timeless, almost classical look, consistent with the idealized setting in which Maes has situated her. Marieke de Winkel has remarked that the sitter’s tucked-up white sleeves lack the cuffs and lace that would have been part of a woman’s ensemble in those years. Maes has rendered the dress with remarkably free and flowing brushwork, suggestive of the imaginative nature of his design, and with reddish tonalities that echo the evening sky.
The woman’s features and flesh tones are rendered far more carefully than are the draperies. One can imagine that Maes’ restrained flair in these aspects of the portrait resulted directly from the force of the sitter’s no-nonsense personality. She probably also insisted that Maes accurately depict her fashionable headdress, a style that was in vogue for a short time in the mid-1670s. She wears a tipmuts, a black cap with a point at the forehead made of a transparent, gauzelike material. At the back her hair is done up in a wrong, a stiff structure in the form of a crescent (covered in silk the color of the lady’s hair) on which the plaits were coiled. The cap was then held on with gold or silver cords tied at the nape of the neck.
Despite the sitter’s distinguished appearance and apparent social status, her identity has been lost over the course of time. The Camberlyn family, which owned the painting in the eighteenth century, wrongly identified the woman as Johanna Koerten (1650–1715) when the portrait was exhibited in Brussels in 1886. However Koerten, wife of Adriaan Blok and renowned throughout Europe for her paper cuttings, had a smooth, round face, quite different in appearance from the woman portrayed here. In 1676, moreover, Koerten would have been only twenty-six years old, much younger than Maes’ sitter. Although the identity of the sitter remains unknown, it does seem probable that she came from Amsterdam, where Maes had settled in 1673 to take advantage of the strong portrait market in that city. It is possible that this portrait was originally paired with one of the woman’s husband, but the fact that she wears no ring probably indicates that she was unmarried.
Houbraken wrote that he knew of no portrait painter before or after Maes who was more successful in depicting a sitter’s appearance. This same biographical account also makes clear that Maes was keenly aware of his clients’ wishes and was willing to adapt to changing styles and tastes. For example, even though Maes was trained by Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606 - 1669), Houbraken noted that the artist soon realized that young women preferred to be portrayed in white rather than in brown. Houbraken also stated that to learn a more elegant manner of portraiture, Maes traveled to Antwerp to study portraits painted by Sir Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577 - 1640) and Sir Anthony van Dyck (Flemish, 1599 - 1641). Although Houbraken’s account has been questioned, his recollections ring true with the radical transformation of Maes’ portrait style in the 1660s, from a Rembrandtesque mode to a more elegant and refined portrayal of his sitters, a change that reflected broader cultural patterns in the Netherlands during that period.
Maes’ full adaptation of the international Flemish style of portraiture is evident in this elegant and refined portrait, not only in the outdoor garden setting, with streaks of red and orange enlivening the evening sky, but also in the broadly brushed, shimmering drapery wrapped around the marble column signifying the sitter’s social standing and upright character. Even the woman’s pose, as she rests her arm on the base of the column, is drawn directly from Van Dyck prototypes, although this pose is found more often in portraits of men. Maes’ palette is, however, quite distinct from that of Van Dyck. Nowhere in the Flemish artist’s work does one find the brilliant rust-colored reds seen here in the woman’s dress. Maes’ careful rendering of her face also differs from Van Dyck’s more generalized and idealized portrayals of his sitters. In this strict adherence to reality, Maes remained true to his firm roots in Dutch pictorial traditions.
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.
April 24, 2014
