Nicolaes Maes (Dordrecht 1634 – 1693 Amsterdam)

Double Portrait of a Girl as Hebe and a Boy as Ganymede

Oil on canvas
54 ½ by 43 ¾ in. (138.4 by 111.1cm.)

Provenance:
Adm. Robert Hathorn Johnson Stewart, Physgill, Glasserton and Wigtownshire; sale, Christie’s, London, July 23, 1948, lot 59; sale, Christie’s, London, December 5, 1969, lot 128; sale, Christie’s, London, March 24, 1972, lot 35, Galerie du Lac, Vercy

Literature:
F. W. Robinson, exhibition catalogue, Dutch Life in the Golden Century, St. Petersburg, Florida, Museum of Fine Arts and The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 1975, p. 47, note 2; W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, London, 1983, pp. 2036, no. 1442 and p. 2168, illus.
Ed. J.B. Bedaux & Rudi Ekkart, Pride and Joy: Children’s Portraits in the Netherlands 1500-1700, Amsterdam, 2001, pp.16-18, illus.

The present composition illustrates Ganymede being born up to Mount Olympus by an eagle (Zeus’ attribute) where Hebe will relinquish her cup to him. The young girl was previously identified as representing Pomona, but she is more closely associated with Hebe, the daughter of Zeus and Hera, and a cupbearer to the gods.

Born the son of a merchant in Dordrecht, Maes was said by Arnold Houbraken to have learned drawing from a mediocre master (‘een gemeeen Meester’) and paintings from Rembrandt. The latter period of tuition probably occurred in Amsterdam around 1650, and was certainly concluded by late 1653, when Maes returned to his native Dordrecht, where he seems to have remained until 1673, when he settled permanently in Amsterdam. According to Houbraken, he journeyed to Antwerp to see paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and others. The date of this trip is usually placed in the early to mid-1660s. 

Maes’s earliest works depict religious subjects and exhibit a strong Rembrandtesque style. Subsequently, he executed genre scenes, often of domestic themes, such as old women praying and street peddlers. By 1654 he had begun painting the small-scale domestic interiors for which he is best remembered, and which anticipate works by the Delft painters such as Pieter de Hooch and Johannes Vermeer. Maes continued to paint genre scenes only until about 1659. The remainder of his prolific and successful career was devoted exclusively to elegant portraiture.

Sumowski dates the present picture to the early 1670’s, when Maes was at the height of his creative powers and produced some of his most brilliant works. He compares it to the Ganymede in the Roijtman Foundation, New York, which is signed and dated 1673 (loc. cit.). Maes’s early portraits show the influence of his teacher Rembrandt, but during the 1660s his approach gradually began to change. His style became increasingly elegant, and by the end of the decade his compositions and poses had acquired certain monumentality.  As seen here, Maes liked to paint his models with much drapery, preferably against a park-like backdrop, although the panoramic landscape in the present work is somewhat atypical. The influence of Flemish art, especially that of van Dyck, is evident in Maes’s portraiture of this period and later, as witnessed here in the powerful and broad brush strokes and the large swath of swirling red drapery that envelopes the young girl.