The divided household of Nicolaes Maes
1994; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 10; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/02666286.1994.10435509
ISSN1943-2178
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Influence and Diplomacy
ResumoAbstract In Nicolaes Maes's ‘Eavesdropper on the Stairs’, now in the Dordrecht Museum, a young woman has come downstairs from the dinner table, looking for the maid to refill her empty wineglass.1 Meanwhile, the maid is being led off to another room by a well-dressed man. The woman, who can evidently hear them, raises her finger to her lips and smiles (figure 1). This picture is the largest and most ambitious of six domestic scenes painted by Maes between 1655 and 1657, when the young artist, fresh from several years of study with Rembrandt in Amsterdam, had settled in his native Dordrecht. Neither the occasion for their production, not their specific relationship to one another, is known; yet these six paintings have the formal and thematic consistency of a series.2 In each case an eavesdropper comes down a stairway, smiling at the viewer with finger on lips, and draws attention to a scene in another room. In five of the pictures, an employer overhears the seduction of a maid; in a sixth picture, a maid, using the same eavesdropper's gesture, calls attention to her angry mistress.
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