Portrait of a gentleman wearing a dark blue coat with a white chemise

Portrait of a Gentleman in a Dark Blue Coat from 1676 by Nicolaes Maes is one of his numerous male portraits documenting the prosperous merchant and regent class of Amsterdam. The dark blue coat was fashionable among the Dutch elite in the 1670s. Maes trained with Rembrandt in Amsterdam in the early 1650s before establishing himself as an independent master. His mature portrait style absorbed Flemish elegance — producing fashionable likenesses with looser brushwork and warmer flesh tones that...

The portrait renders the gentleman with Maes's characteristic combination of precise facial modeling and broadly painted costume elements.