Portrait of a lady 

Nicolaes Maes painted this portrait of a lady using oil on canvas, a standard formula for commemorating the wealthy in the Dutch Golden Age. What’s interesting here is how the material reality of her clothing signifies her social status. The sheen of her satin dress, likely imported, speaks of global trade networks and the Dutch mastery of shipping routes. Then there is the pearl necklace, a luxury item harvested by divers, and the meticulously arranged bouquet. The labor required to produce and acquire these items is immense, yet largely invisible. Consider too, the labor of the artist. Maes would have spent hours grinding pigments, mixing paints, and applying them in layers to achieve the illusion of depth and texture, and to produce a likeness. By attending to the making and the materials represented, we see this portrait not just as a depiction of an individual, but as a complex document of labor, trade, and class in 17th-century Holland.