Dutch Gentleman

Titled simply Dutch Gentleman, this 1648 canvas is an early work by Maes, made just as he was completing or had recently completed his training with Rembrandt. The date places it in the period immediately before the Peace of Westphalia closed the Eighty Years' War, when Dutch mercantile confidence was at its height and the demand for portrait paintings was expanding rapidly beyond the regent elite to include wealthy merchants and professionals. The Smithsonian American Art Museum holding suggests the work entered American collections during one of the major dispersals of Dutch Old Master paintings in the nineteenth or early twentieth century. As an early Maes, the work shows his emerging ability to combine the psychological depth inherited from Rembrandt with a directness of presentation appropriate for commercial portraiture — a synthesis that would fuel his highly successful later career.

The warm brown ground and deep shadow areas reflect Rembrandt's studio practice, while the treatment of the costume — dark with simply noted highlights — shows the young Maes already developing efficiency. The face is the most worked area, with careful layering of flesh tones and a warm final glaze. The plain background provides no distracting detail, focusing the viewer on the sitter.