A Woman Selling Milk

Maes's Woman Selling Milk from around 1655 belongs to his early genre period, directly inspired by his training with Rembrandt and his engagement with the tradition of domestic subjects that Rembrandt had elevated to high art. The milk-selling woman—caught in the transaction between domestic production and commercial exchange at a doorway—combines the interior/exterior threshold that Dutch genre painters used to create spatial drama with the observation of working women's daily commerce. Maes brought to these genre subjects the warm, enveloping light and the psychological dignity of Rembrandt's approach, refusing the condescending humor with which lesser painters treated similar subjects. The work belongs to the remarkable decade 1654-60 when he produced his finest genre paintings before the shift to fashionable portraiture that would dominate his late career.

The domestic scene employs warm, Rembrandtesque chiaroscuro with light falling from a window to illuminate the central figure. The intimate scale and warm palette reflect Maes's close study of Rembrandt's approach to everyday subjects.