Nicolaes Maes (January 1634December 1693; buried 24 December 1693) was a Dutch painter known for his genre scenes, portraits, religious compositions and the occasional still life. A pupil of Rembrandt in Amsterdam, he returned to work in his native city of Dordrecht for 20 years. In the latter part of his career he returned to Amsterdam where he became the leading portrait painter of his time. Maes contributed to the development of genre painting in the Netherlands, and was the most prominent portrait painter working in Amsterdam in the final three decades of the 17th century.
Life
Nicolaes Maes was born in Dordrecht as the second son of Gerrit Maes, a prosperous cloth merchant and soap boiler, and Ida Herman Claesdr.
He initially trained with a mediocre painter in his hometown. Around 1648, he went to Amsterdam, where he entered Rembrandt's studio. He remained in the studio of Rembrandt for about five years. He had returned to Dordrecht by December 1653. Here he is recorded making marriage arrangements as he posted on 28 December 1653 the bans of his marriage with Adriana Brouwers, the widow of the preacher Arnoldus de Gelder.
left|thumb|220px|Two chattering housewives
A signed and dated picture of 1653 shows that the artist had established himself as an independent artist by that year.
In the middle or end of the 1650s, Maes travelled to Antwerp where he studied the work of Flemish artists such as Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens. During his stay in Antwerp Maes is said to have paid a visit to Jordaens's studio and conversed with the artist at length about painting. By showing Hagar's despondency and Ishmael's isolated posture the work is one of the most moving renderings of this theme, popular with Rembrandt's pupils. Most of Maes's religious compositions are of cabinet size except for the Christ Blessing the Children (National Gallery, London) which depicts life-size figures. Maes applied Rembrandt's stylistic characteristics such as the brushwork and chiaroscuro to domestic scenes that were the favourite subject matter of Dutch genre artists of his time.
left|thumb|220px|[[An Old Woman Dozing|Old woman dozing]]
His paintings of domestic interiors showing women engaged in household tasks are endowed with a solemn dignity through the play of light and shadow and the limited colour palette derived from Rembrandt. Between 1654 and 1658, he created a large number of pictures of spinners, lace makers and mothers with children that express the contemporary moralistic view of the value of family life and quiet diligence.
Maes created some works showing everyday events occurring on the doorstep of a private house such as milkmaids ringing the doorbell or receiving payment or boys asking for alms. Maes was able to bestow on these mundane transactions a solemn dignity. Another theme treated by Maes in the mid-1650s are elderly female figures shown in half or three-quarter length such as an elderly woman saying grace before a simple meal, praying amid vanitas symbols or dozing over a Bible. He further painted one group portrait of a guild, the Six Governors of the Amsterdam Surgeons' Guild (1680–81, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam).