Interior with a Sleeping Maid and her Mistress ('The Idle Servant')

Artist: Nicolaes Maes (Dutch, 1634 - 1693)

Original Dimensions: 27 1/2" x 21"

Location: National Gallery of Art, London

About Artwork: (1655) "Although the title of this picture is Interior with a Sleeping Maid and her Mistress it has become known as The Idle Servant. The young woman is slumped on a stool, head in hand, taking a snooze after the hard work involved in preparing a large meal; heavy pots and pans litter the floor. But the mistress doesn‘t appear to be condemning her for a mortal sin – she shrugs her shoulders with a smile that seems to say, ’what am I to do with her?‘ 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." - (National Gallery of Art, London)