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Notes
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Nicolaes Maes was for a while a student of Rembrandt. Here he has used his master’s technique of chiaroscuro (’light dark', contrasting use of light and shade to create a dramatic effect) to pick out the important points in the story. The contrasts and rich colours lend atmosphere and demonstrate Maes’s considerable skills in portraying texture, mood and character – seventeenth-century Dutch genre painting at its finest.
Title
Interior with a Sleeping Maid and her Mistress ('The Idle Servant')
Date
1655
Medium
Oil on oak
Measurements
H 70 x W 53.3 cm
Accession number
NG207
Acquisition method
Bequeathed by Richard Simmons, 1847
Work type
Painting
The National Gallery, London
Trafalgar Square, London, Greater London WC2N 5DN England
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