Portrait of a Young Girl c.1675; Circle of Nicholas Maes.

By Roy Precious From United Kingdom

Price £7,950.00
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Oil on canvas in a reproduction gilt frame.

The sitter, standing by a stone balustrade and looking at the roses, seems to have become aware of the viewer and turns with a half smile and a mildly inquiring look.
This is a fine quality painting showing the expertise of the artist in the depiction of very different things...the fresh young skin of the sitter, the hard stone of the balustrade, the fragility of the flowers and the soft lustrous silks of the girl's clothing.

The flowers are highly symbolic, they are the attribute of Spring personified...and the girl is in the Spring of her life. They also represent Smell, one of the Five Senses, and of the goddesses Flora and Aurora. They are sometimes the attribute of Hope and they represent the fleeting quality of life and the evanescent quality of childhood.
The rose, of course, is also a symbol of love.

NICHOLAS MAES (1634 - 1693) was born in the Dutch city of Dordrecht. At the age of eighteen he went to Amsterdam where he became one of the many pupils and assistants in the atelier of Rembrandt. It was here that he acquired the warmth of colour which characterizes his early genre pictures. The years between 1655 and 1665 were the most productive of his life. The paintings dating from this period are small, simple scenes portraying people engaged in domestic pursuits.
When he settled in Antwerp about 1670, his style was radically altered. Possibly under the influence of Van Dyck, Maes abandoned scenes of home life and devoted himself exclusively to portraiture. So completely altered was the matter and the manner of his work that for many years it was believed that two painters named Maes were living at the same time, one in Dordrecht, the other in Brussels. Commissions came readily from the prosperous citizens of Antwerp who wanted high quality life-like portraits.
At the age of sixty-one Maes died in the city of Antwerp.

SIZE: 31.50 x 27 inches framed. (80 x 68.5 cm)
Canvas size: 24 x 19.5 inches (61 x 49 cm).
PROVENANCE: private collection.
VERSO: old printed label: 'Maas. Portrait of a girl plucking roses'.