Portrait of a young lady wearing a red cloak at a fountain

Portrait of a Young Lady at a Fountain from 1675 by Nicolaes Maes places the sitter in an outdoor setting with a fountain, a fashionable portrait convention imported from French and Flemish painting. The fountain setting elevated the portrait above mere likeness to suggest an arcadian ideal. 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 wit...

The outdoor setting with its fountain provides an elegant backdrop, with Maes rendering both the sitter's features and the architectural elements with balanced attention.