A Man holding a Carnation to a Woman's Nose: An Allegory of the Sense of Smell

Nicolaes Maes's allegorical scene of a man holding a carnation to a woman's nose as an allegory of smell from around 1660 shows the artist in transition between his early Rembrandtesque style and the more fashionable Flemish-influenced portraiture he adopted from the late 1660s onward. Maes had trained directly with Rembrandt in Amsterdam around 1648-53 and developed a distinctive genre and portrait style marked by warm Rembrandtesque light and intimate psychological observation. The five-senses allegory series was a traditional subject that combined genre observation with philosophical content, and Maes's version deploys the elegant domestic setting and social interaction that characterized the fashionable Dutch genre painting of his contemporaries ter Borch and Metsu. The work documents his engagement with this popular subject type before his reorientation toward aristocratic portraiture.

The allegorical subject is rendered with a lighter, more refined palette than Maes's earlier genre works, reflecting the influence of Flemish and French painting on his mature style. Smooth brushwork and elegant figure types replace the darker, more intimate manner of his Rembrandt years.