Portrait of Cornelis Ascanius van Sypesteyn (1638-1673)

Cornelis Ascanius van Sypesteyn (1638–1673) was a Dutch nobleman and military officer whose short life ended when he was thirty-five. This 1675 portrait, painted posthumously or very close to the end of his life, now hangs in Kasteel-Museum Sypesteyn, the family's ancestral seat — making it one of the relatively rare examples of a Maes portrait that has remained in the family home for which it was made. By the mid-1670s Maes was at the peak of his fashionable Amsterdam portraiture practice, and his combination of Dutch naturalistic tradition with international elegance suited clients who wanted to project both Dutch civic virtue and European refinement. The castle setting of this portrait's present location gives it an unusual contextual completeness: the viewer can see the sitter still occupying his own domain.

Maes's mid-1670s portrait style employs a confident, broad brushwork for costume and hair, reserving finer detail for the face. Armour or formal dress elements are indicated with assured tonal contrasts rather than painstaking surface description. The composition is likely a three-quarter length, the standard for male sitters of military or civic standing.