Nicolaes Maes (1634 - 1693). Nicolaes Maes 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 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 decennia of the 17th century. 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. A picture of 1653 which is signed and dated shows that the artist had established himself as an independent artist by that year. Maes continued to live and work in Dordrecht until 1673. He was clearly successful as attested by the fact that he paid municipal taxes on capital of 3,000 and 4,000 guilders. His high social status is demonstrated by his membership of the local civic guard, in which he reached the rank of lieutenant. At the start of his career Maes painted biblical subjects, genre scenes and portraits. From the 1660s he dedicated himself almost exclusively to portrait painting. In the middle or end of the 1650s, Maes traveled 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 Jacob Jordaens' studio and conversed with the artist at length about painting. Maes moved to Amsterdam in 1673 where he resided until his death. The move was likely related to the ready market for portrait specialists after the death of the leading Amsterdam portrait painters Abraham van den Tempel and Bartholomeus van der Helst. The downturn in the art market in Dordrecht and other Dutch cities as a result of the Rampjaar of 1672, which was marked by a large-scale invasion of the Dutch Republic by French and other armies, likely also played a role. Maes must have counted on his fashionable portrait paintings to attract the patronage of Amsterdam's larger population of prosperous burghers. His calculation was correct as Maes was so much in demand as a portraitist in Amsterdam that sitters considered it a favour to be given the chance to have the artist paint their portrait. The great number of portraits dating to the 1670s and 1680s are evidence of his success as a society portraitist. Despite his long-term residency in Amsterdam starting from 1673, Maes never became a citizen of Amsterdam. He waited until 1688 to register with the Amsterdam Guild of Saint Luke, only after the municipality had demanded a list of members from the Guild. Maes registered with the Guild not as a burgher ', but as a resident. Maes suffered from gout in the final years of his life. His wife Adriana Brouwers was buried in the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam on 14 March 1690. Maes died a few years later and on 24 December 1693 he was buried alongside his wife. Maes had achieved financial success, as his estate included 11,000 guilders in cash, two houses in Dordrecht and three houses in Amsterdam. Maes' pupils in Dordrecht included Justus de Gelder, who was his stepson, Margaretha van Godewijk, Jacob Moelaert, and Johannes Vollevens. Maes started his career as a painter of biblical and mythological subjects, genre paintings and portraits during the period from 1653 to c. 1660. He later concentrated almost exclusively on portrait painting. In his early years as an independent artist in the early 1650s Maes painted a few biblical and mythological scenes. These include the Suffer the little Children to come unto Me, Vertumnus and Pomona and Woman of Samaria at the Well. Maes' biblical compositions were clearly indebted to his master Rembrandt's models but show at the same time that he was capable of interpreting the bible and the iconographic precedents in an original manner. For instance, in the Dismissal of Hagar and Ishmael Maes portrays the Biblical figure Abraham banishing the handmaiden Hagar along with their son, Ishmael. By showing Hagar's despondency and her son Ishmael's isolated posture the work is one of the most moving renderings of this theme popular with Rembrandt's pupils.