The Old Lacemaker

Nicolaes Maes painted this small panel in 1655 for buyers who would read it at once. In a Dutch home of the day, lace-making and needlework counted as a woman's virtue, the mark of a diligent household, so this old woman shows how things ought to be. She sits in the light with spectacles on her nose, working the bobbins over a lace pillow on a little wooden stand. The room sinks into brown shadow, with earthenware pots and a brush on a shelf and a wicker basket on the wall. The painter lettered his name on the foot of the stand, with the M, A and E joined together. Even so, at a London auction in 1832 the picture was sold as the work of Dirk Maes, a younger Haarlem painter best known for horses and hunting parties.