Portrait of Pieter Groenendijk by Nicolaes Maes

Nicolaes Maes trained with Rembrandt. He became Amsterdam's leading portraitist by painting cloth better than anyone. 'Portrait of Pieter Groenendijk' (c. 1690) is in a museum collection.

The white lace collar is oil paint, thinned until it ran like water. The embroidered robe below it: layer after layer of transparent glaze. The red sash: thick paint, each fold left as a single stroke. Three fabrics, three techniques.

Maes studied under Rembrandt, spent twenty years in Dordrecht, then returned to Amsterdam in the 1670s and became its most sought-after portraitist. He died in 1693.

Thousands of Dutch Golden Age portraits show men in dark robes. What sets this one apart is that every fabric was a separate technical problem, and Maes solved each one differently. Look at the collar again. It's still paint, not thread.