2-979-790 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"The Idle Servant" - in the National Gallery - painted by Nicolas Maes, 1857. Engraving of a painting. 'Nothing can he more truthful and felicitous in the way of a pleasant domestic episode than the scene the artist has delineated. The hour is that which has followed a copious family repast in Dutch citizen life. In an inner room at the end of a passage conversation and stimulants have succeeded to mastication. But the kitchen wench resigns herself to slumber; grimalkin makes an attack on the cold fowl and the upper servant, entering the apartment, contemplates the scene with a richness of humorous expression that is sardonic yet still essentially feminine...The execution of the picture is admirable; the colour rich, deep, and juicy; the glazing done with the most skilled craft; and the detail not thrown away, but merged in the general effect'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.