The Lacemaker (Maes)

The Lacemaker is an oil on canvas painting by the Dutch painter Nicolaes Maes, created c. 1656. It is an example of Dutch Golden Age painting and is part of the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York.

This painting is typical of many paintings of women in interiors painted by Maes in the time. The woman is making bobbin lace using a lace pillow that can be seen in other Maes paintings of lacemakers:

This painting was documented by Hofstede de Groot in 1914, who wrote; "75. A Young Lace-Maker. Sm. Suppl. 13. She wears a red dress and white apron, and sits at a window which lights the room. Beside her, her little child, in a yellow frock, plays in a wooden chair. To the right is a table with a red cover, on which is an earthenware pot. Signed in full in large antique letters ; canvas, 17 1/2 inches by 20 inches according to Sm. and Waagen, but 33 1/2 inches by 30 1/2 inches according to the Manchester Catalogue. Exhibited in Manchester, 1857, No. 1050. In the collection of H. Labouchere, London, 1842 (Sm.) and 1854 (Waagen, ii. 421)."

In 1916 Labouchere's heir sold it for $25,000 to F. Kleinberger who in turn sold it on for $27,500 to Michael Friedsam. Friedsam bequeathed it to the museum in 1931.