Portrait of an Man wearing the Order of the Garter

Portrait of a Man Wearing the Order of the Garter from 1675 by Nicolaes Maes shows a sitter with an English honor, suggesting international connections. The Order of the Garter was England's highest chivalric order, occasionally bestowed on foreign allies. Maes trained with Rembrandt in Amsterdam in the early 1650s before establishing himself as an independent master. His mature portrait style absorbed Flemish elegance — producing fashionable likenesses with looser brushwork and warmer flesh ...

The insignia of the Order of the Garter is rendered with precise attention to its distinctive details, combined with Maes's naturalistic portrait approach.