The Lacemaker | Nicolaes Maes | All | European Paintings | Collection Database | Works of Art

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Signed (on base of child's chair): N.MAES.

Gallery LabelMaes painted a number of domestic scenes such as this one between 1655 and 1660. The woman's quiet absorption in her work may have been intended as an example of wifely virtue, a subject belabored by Dutch authors such as Jacob ("Father") Cats.

NotesThe format of the signature indicates a date after 1655, but the picture is an early work and probably dates from 1656–57.

A vertical copy after this work, depicting the figures only, was sold at Christie's, London, on December 15–16, 1983, no. 47, as Circle of Reinier Coveyn (wood, 47 x 36.2 cm). A similar copy [perhaps the same one] was sold at Christie's East, New York, on November 8, 1984, no. 60, as by Reinier Coveyn (wood, 48.2 x 34.5 cm).

The Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD) in The Hague has photos of two more copies: one in the A. F. Walter sale, Christie's, London, June 20, 1913, no. 127, and later with the dealer Douwes, Amsterdam (wood, 56 x 44 cm; HdG 78); another with the dealer Rothmann, Berlin, in 1929 (canvas, 48.6 x 61.5 cm).

ProvenanceHon. Henry Labouchere, later 1st Baron Taunton, Taunton, Somerset, and Stoke, near Windsor (by 1842–?d. 1869); ?his daughter, Hon. Mary Dorothy Labouchere, later Mrs. Edward James Stanley, Cross Hall, Lancashire (from 1869); [Scott & Fowles, New York, until 1916; sold for $25,000 to Kleinberger]; [Kleinberger, New York, 1916–17; sold for $27,500 to Friedsam]; Michael Friedsam, New York (1917–d. 1931)

Exhibition History

Manchester. Museum of Ornamental Art. "Art Treasures of the United Kingdom," May 5–October 17, 1857, no. 1050.

New York. Lotos Club. "Loan Exhibition of XVIIth Century Paintings," February 1919, no. 13.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Michael Friedsam Collection," November 15, 1932–April 9, 1933, no catalogue.

Honolulu Academy of Arts. "Four Centuries of European Painting," December 8, 1949–January 29, 1950, no. 4.

Nantucket. Kenneth Taylor Galleries. "Realism," June 26–July 31, 1949, no catalogue?

Hartford. Wadsworth Atheneum. "Life in Seventeenth Century Holland," November 21, 1950–January 14, 1951, no. 41.

Art Gallery of Toronto. "Fifty Paintings by Old Masters," April 21–May 21, 1950, no. 21.

Atlanta University. September 1, 1951–January 30, 1952, no catalogue.

Nashville. Fisk University. April 20–August 15, 1951, no catalogue.

New Orleans. Dillard University. February 1–April 30, 1952, no catalogue.

New York. Hunter College. "Dutch Celebration," April 27–May 11, 1953, no catalogue?

New Paltz, N.Y. State Teachers College. April 19–24, 1954, no catalogue?

Scottsdale. Arizona Art Association. "Paintings from the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art," February 22–March 21, 1954, no catalogue.

Southampton, N.Y. Parrish Art Museum. "Paintings from the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art," July 22–August 18, 1954, not in catalogue.

Vancouver Art Gallery. "Rembrandt to Van Gogh," September 17–October 13, 1957, unnumbered cat.

Newark Museum. "Art and Home: Dutch Interiors in the Age of Rembrandt," September 30, 2001–January 20, 2002, no. 49.

Denver Art Museum. "Art and Home: Dutch Interiors in the Age of Rembrandt," March 2–May 26, 2002, no. 49.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Age of Rembrandt: Dutch Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 18, 2007–January 6, 2008, no catalogue.

References

John Smith. "Supplement." A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters. 9, London, 1842, p. 579, no. 13.

[Gustav Friedrich] Waagen. Treasures of Art in Great Britain. London, 1854, vol. 2, p. 421.

W. Burger [Théophile Thoré]. Trésors d'art exposés à Manchester en 1857. Paris, 1857, pp. 255–56 [reprinted as "Trésors d'art en Angleterre," Brussels, 1860, with same pagination].

W. Bürger [Théophile Thoré]. "Van der Meer de Delft (1er article)." Gazette des beaux-arts 21 (October 1866), p. 315.

G. H. Veth. "Aanteekeningen omtrent eenige Dordrechtsche Schilders." Oud-Holland 8 (1890), p. 141.

Alfred von Wurzbach. Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon. 2, Vienna, 1910, p. 90.

C[ornelis]. Hofstede de Groot. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century. 6, London, 1916, p. 496, no. 75.

Wilhelm R. Valentiner in The Michael Friedsam Collection. [completed 1928], p. 10.

Howard Hibbard. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1980, p. 344, fig. 611 (color).

Werner Sumowski. "B. Keil–J. Ovens." Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler. 3, Landau/Pfalz, 1983–[94?], pp. 1954, 1956–57, 2016, no. 1347, ill. p. 2073 (color).

Barbara Burn. Metropolitan Children. New York, 1984, pp. 22–23, ill. (color).

Peter C. Sutton. A Guide to Dutch Art in America. Grand Rapids, Mich., 1986, p. 188.

Walter Liedtke. "Dutch Paintings in America: The Collectors and Their Ideals." Great Dutch Paintings from America. Exh. cat., Mauritshuis, The Hague. Zwolle, The Netherlands, 1990, p. 52.

Wayne Franits. "Young Women Preferred White to Brown: Some Remarks on Nicolaes Maes and the Cultural Context of Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Portraiture." Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 46 (1995), p. 395, fig. 1.

Walter Liedtke in "Paintings, Drawings, and Prints: Art-Historical Perspectives." Rembrandt/Not Rembrandt in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Aspects of Connoisseurship. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2, New York, [1995], p. 151, under no. 53.

Nanette Salomon. "Domesticating the Peasant Father: The Confluent Ideologies of Gender, Class, and Age in the Prints of Adriaen van Ostade." Images of Women in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art: Domesticity and the Representation of the Peasant. Athens, Ga., 1996, p. 49, fig. 7 [reprinted in "Shifting Priorities: Gender and Genre in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting," Stanford, 2004, p. 97, fig. 81].

León Krempel. Studien zu den datierten Gemälden des Nicolaes Maes (1634–1693). Petersberg, Germany, 2000, pp. 27, 32–34, 61, 360, no. D29, fig. 41.

Mariët Westermann in Art & Home: Dutch Interiors in the Age of Rembrandt. Exh. cat., Newark Museum. Denver, 2001, pp. 67, 178, no. 49, fig. 97 (color) and ill. p. 178.

Elizabeth A. Pergam. "From Manchester to Manhattan: The Transatlantic Art Trade After 1857." Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 87, no. 2 (2005), pp. 87, 89.

Walter Liedtke. Dutch Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2007, vol. 1, pp. 430, 436, 439–41, 464, no. 110, colorpl. 110, vol. 2, p. 744.

Esmée Quodbach. "The Age of Rembrandt: Dutch Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 65 (Summer 2007), pp. 38, 45, 68, 71, figs. 48 (Friedsam house photograph), 82 (color, MMA Vermeer gallery photograph).

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