Detail of The Lacemaker by Nicolaes Maes in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 2019

The Lacemaker
ca. 1656


Object Details

Artist: Nicolaes Maes (Dutch, Dordrecht 1634–1693 Amsterdam)

Date: ca. 1656

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 17 3/4 x 20 3/4 in. (45.1 x 52.7 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: The Friedsam Collection, Bequest of Michael Friedsam, 1931

Accession Number: 32.100.5


Painted slightly after the artist’s Young Woman Peeling Apples, this scene reveals Maes’s increasing interest in anecdotal, domestic detail as he moved further out of Rembrandt’s shadow. Here, he shows a young mother absorbed in the meticulous work of lace-making, while her baby looks boldly out at the viewer from his high chair. As in many of Maes’s other works, the color red—on the mother’s bodice, baby’s hat, and tablecloth—provides a unifying element.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436932