'Nicolaes Maes: Dutch Master of the Golden Age' at the National Gallery

There's a lovely small exhibition of works by Nicolaes Maes at the National Gallery at the moment, apparently the first exhibition of his works in the UK. He was a pupil of Rembrandt before becoming a popular master in his own right.

The exhibition is in three distinct sections over three rooms in the ground floor galleries. The first room displays his early works, some of which have been considered as by Rembrandt in the past, mainly religious works. The second room is made up of small 'genre' paintings which were great fun. The third room is made up of Maes' portraits, including a late self-portrait. Apparently he painted 900 portraits so he must have been well off.

My favourite of his early paintings was his 'Adoration of the Shepherds' which is a copy of an etching by Durer from 150 years earlier. I spent a gleeful few minutes trying to find all the health and safety hazards - those bricks could tumble down any minute and just look at the wooden roof that could easily crash down on Joseph at the slightest breeze and I'm not even mentioning the shepherd's crook sticking out waiting to trip up someone. Then I had to find the donkey and the ox and there they are, at the back in the shadow. It can't be a nativity scene without the donkey and the ox.

Dutch genre paintings of the 17th Century aren't really my favourites but I thought these were delightful.

My favourites were the 'eavesdropper' paintings in which the figure in the foreground is listening to what's happening in the darkened background, the servant listening to their master's goings on or to what other servants are up to. They're quite simple in a way but you need to spot the details to understand what's going on, and that forces you to look carefully. Often you can see tiny lovers in a dark corner, sometimes flirting and sometimes being discovered, the servants always know.

It was quite fun to notice that the same model was used for two of these paintings, and quite probably many more. I wonder who she was and how much she was paid for her modelling? I wonder what she might think if she knew people were looking at here 350 years later?

There were also some of Maes's drawings on show and I particularly liked these two drawings of old women. They're quite small but are incredibly detailed or slightly smudged to make them look detailed. These were made from red chalk on paper.

The final room is made up of portraits, some more dramatic than others. Some were in their original frames and I really liked these two, a pair of betrothal portraits in individual frames. The lady is Ingena Rotterdam and the gentleman is Jacob Benkes and they were painted in about 1676. As portraits they're nice enough but look at those frames. They were made to personalise the portraits so his has a figure of Mars at the top and she has Venus - he was a soldier so it is particularly apt. Sadly they never married since he was killed fighting the French in the new world. 

There is also a self-portrait in which he shows himself as a prosperous and important man, be-wigged in his curly finery. It's a nice little exhibition in the ground floor galleries and is free to view. Sadly, of course, the National Gallery is currently closed but hopefully it'll still be on when the current shut-down is over.