NICOLAES MAES (Dordrecht 1634 – Amsterdam 1693)
A Portrait of Johannes Reeland (1648-1703) and A Portrait of his Wife Agatha Prins (d. 1679)
The former signed, lower right: NMAES; the latter signed, lower left: NMAES
A pair with both inscribed with their respective family coats of arms
Both oil on canvas
The former 17⅞ x 13½ inches (45.5 x 33 cm); the latter 17¾ x 13½ inches (45 x 34.2 cm)
Both in their original stave frames with pierced carving
PROVENANCE
Count Thierry van Limburg Stirum (1827-1911), Huldenberg, Belgium
Sale, Christie’s, London, December 11, 1984, lot 103
Johnny Van Haeften Limited, London, 1985 from whom acquired by
Private Collection, Florida, 1985 – until the present time
LITERATURE
León Krempel, Studien zu den datierten Gemälden des Nicolaes Maes (1634 – 1693), Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg, 2000, p. 369
Bart Cornelis & Nina Cahill, “Nicolaes Maes: original frames, French Fashions, metal appliqués” on The Frame Blog, at theframeblog.com, October 6, 2020
ENGRAVED
Cornelis A. Hellemans, executed 1650 – 1699 of Johannes Reeland (an example is in The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inventory no. RP. P-1906-3358)
Gerrit Maes, a well-to-do silk merchant and soap manufacturer in Dordrecht, and his wife Ida Herman Claesdr were the parents of Nicolaes Maes. According to Arnold Houbraken in De Groote Schouburgh der Nederlantsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen (1718-1721) Maes first studied drawing in Dordrecht with a “mediocre master” (“een gemeen meester”) and then went to Amsterdam to study painting with Rembrandt. He probably was in Amsterdam from 1648/50 until 1653, when he returned to Dordrecht to marry Adriana Brouwers. His work of the 1650s most closely reveals the influence of Rembrandt. Representing mainly scenes of domestic genre, with the employment of his master’s brushwork, coloration and chiaroscuro, Maes invokes a stateliness not often associated with such subjects. His earliest portraits also date from the 1650s but show little of Rembrandt’s style, rather reflect such Dordrecht artists as Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp, Aelbert Cuyp, and Samuel von Hoogstraten. These works are characterized by a limited palette, austere backgrounds, frontal poses, restrained gestures and guarded expressions. After circa 1660 the subject paintings would be abandoned with the remainder of his career devoted exclusively to portraiture.[1]
In the 1650s painters such as Govaert Flinck, Adriaen Hanneman and Jan Mytens introduced the Flemish style of portraiture based on Anthony van Dyck into the northern Netherlands, from which Maes’s mature style datable to the 1660s slowly evolved. Mytens’s work in particular played an important formative role evidently inspiring the vivid reds, blues and facile brushwork that would characterize Maes’s later portraits. After the deaths of the Amsterdam portrait painters Bartholomeus van der Helst in 1670 and Abraham van den Tempel in 1672; Maes seeing an opportunity for increased patronage moved there in 1673 and the gamble worked. Houbraken recorded, “so much work came his way that it was deemed a favor if one person was granted the opportunity to sit for his portrait before another, and so it remained for the rest of his life”[2]
Maes’s clientele in Dordrecht and Amsterdam were drawn from the top echelon of society.[3] Cornelis Hofstede de Groot characterized the later portraits of Amsterdam as “Technically, these are among the most perfect of their time…The coloring has a piquant charm, especially for the fine reds and the skillful distribution of light and shade…Maes was specially gifted in the production of heads, half-length or three-quarter lengths, about half or two-thirds the size of life, in front of landscapes reddened by the setting sun, in rectangular or oval frames.[4]
The artist’s portraits of the 1670s and 1680s regularly featured sitters viewed in a garden or on a terrace at sunset,[5] the time period from which this pair must date, as they were assuredly painted to commemorate their marriage in 1675. Such imagery was intended to suggest ownership of a country estate. Land in the Netherlands was a highly prized commodity and in extremely limited supply. The second and third quarters of the seventeenth century saw a rise in the purchasing of country estates by wealthy townsmen and with the acquisition of an estate an elevation in social status followed. Life in the country was perceived as peaceful, contemplative, and free of worry or hardships, a time to pursue pleasure. If property was unaffordable, the assumption of ownership could be attained on canvas.[6] By painting the light in these works to reflect sunset, the suggestion of tranquility and the antique were heightened.[7] The inclusion of a reference to antiquity stemmed from the popularity of pastoral literature, which presented a vision of Arcadia as a paradise ruled by Pan, inhabited by nymphs, satyrs, shepherds, dryads and other acolytes, dedicated to the pursuit of love. It suggested a perfect world free of the mundane tribulations of daily life, particularly those encountered in town and court.[8]
The frames of Johannes Reeland and Agatha Prins “consist of hollow convex mouldings, pierced to allow flickers of light to penetrate the ground beneath, and reflect back, animating the flowers and foliage with which the moulding is carved. ...They are carved with a variety of plants, “with florets on the top rail, oak leaves and acorns down the right-hand side, and peonies (?) and vines on the left. These may be purely decorative or have some symbolic message; the frames are in any case extremely attractive borders for the small portraits they contain, displaying them like miniatures in a jeweler’s setting”.[9]
Johannes Reeland (also spelled Reland, Reelant, Relant, or Reelandt) was a Dutch Reformed Minister who first worked in De Rijp in 1670, followed by Alkmaar in 1676, and by 1677 Amsterdam. He further wrote verses celebrating the works of his contemporaries, in particular those of the bedridden writer of religious works Henrica van Hoolwerf. Johannes and Agatha had two sons, Adriaen and Petrus. Petrus became a lawyer. Adriaen who was regarded as a child prodigy, in his doctoral studies focused on “oriental languages” primarily Hebrew, Arabic and Persian all of which he was fluent in and became a highly regarded “Oriental” and Islamic scholar widely read during his lifetime.[10]
[1] Biographical information taken from William W. Robinson, “Nicolaes Maes” in The Grove Dictionary of Art, From Rembrandt to Vermeer, 17th- Century Dutch Artists, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2000, pp. 201-203; and Walter Liedtke, “Nicolaes Maes” in Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, volume I, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007, pp. 430-431.
[2] Robinson, op. cit., pp. 202-203.
[3] Ibid, p. 204.
[4] C. Hofstede de Groot, “Nicolaes Maes” in A Catalogue raisonné of the works of the most eminent Dutch painters of the seventeenth century, volume 6, section XXIII, p. 475.
[5] Robinson, op. cit., 2000
[6] Alison McNeil Kettering, The Dutch Arcadia. Pastoral Art and its Audience in the Golden Age, Totowa, New Jersey, 1983, pp. 10-11, 18, 65, 70-71.
[7] Scott A. Sullivan, The Dutch Gamepiece, Rowmant Allenheld Publishers, Totowa, New Jersey, 1983, pp. 62-63.
[8] James Hall, “Arcadia” in Dictionary of Subject and Symbols in Art, Harper & Row Publishers, New York, 1979, pp. 30-31; and Kettering, op. cit., 10-11, 70-71.
[9] Bart Cornelia & Nina Cahill, op.cit.
[10] Tobias Winnerling, “Correspondence of Adriaen Reland (1676 – 1718) on Early Modern Letters at emlo.portal.bordleian.ox.ac-uk..