Model

Project 2

Maes

The Eavesdropper

Narrative of the painting
Harmoniously lit and logically analysed interior composition

Historical background of the painting
Scenes of social and domestic life became increasingly common during the 1640s and 1950s, developing from the merry company scenes of elegant men and women playing music, dancing, and drinking to smaller, more intimate portrayals of courtships and domestic activity such as women doing housework and caring for children. Theses scenes were usually set in middle class interiors, and artists increasingly took pains to create convincing effect of space and light within them. They demonstrate not only a clear articulation of interior space but also a link between space and subject matter.

Dutch Dollhouses

The Dutch dollhouses made for grown women were among the largest and ore detailed and most sumptuous in all of Europe. They exploited the compartmentalisation of interior spaces and satisfied a desire for visual complexity, creating an illusion on a small scale. The box offered voyeuristic appeal.

Mistress and Maid
Johannes Vermeer van Delft
c. 1667-68;
Oil on canvas, 90.2 x 78.7 cm;
Frick Collection, New York

Mistresses and Maids
Female servants often existed in an ambiguous, and precarious, state between familial protection and marginal poverty or crime. However, the female servant is persistently characterised as an independent, spirited person with considerable autonomy, at least in her behaviour. Yet this independence is often perceived as distinctively negative, however difficult to generalise about the positive and negative portrayal of servants in Dutch painting, the intriguing question is the how the servant-employer relationship unfolds – as there it is hardly doubtful that she was genuinely disturbing to domestic moralists.