[2] Maes contributed to the development of genre painting in the Netherlands and was the most prominent portrait painter working in Amsterdam in the final three decades of the 17th century.

In the middle or end of the 1650s, Maes traveled to Antwerp where he studied the work of Flemish artists such as Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens.

[3] His pupils in Dordrecht included his stepson Justus de Gelder, Margaretha van Godewijk, Jacob Moelaert, and Johannes Vollevens.

Maes's biblical compositions were clearly indebted to his master Rembrandt's models but show at the same time that he was capable of interpreting the Bible and the iconographic precedents in an original manner.

[7] Most of Maes's religious compositions are of cabinet size except for the Christ Blessing the Children (National Gallery, London) which depicts life-size figures.

[3] Maes painted various genre scenes set on the domestic doorsteps (for example A young boy receiving alms from an elderly man, 1656, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts) and others praising the virtues of good parenting.

[8] Maes applied Rembrandt's stylistic characteristics such as the brushwork and chiaroscuro to domestic scenes that were the favourite subject matter of Dutch genre artists of his time.

His paintings of domestic interiors showing women engaged in household tasks are endowed with a solemn dignity through the play of light and shadow and the limited color palette derived from Rembrandt.

Between 1654 and 1658, he created a large number of pictures of spinners, lace makers and mothers with children that express the contemporary moralistic view of the value of family life and quiet diligence.

Maes has thus transformed a simple domestic scene into an evocation of the exercise of dignity and moral uprightness in a true biblical sense.

[9] Maes created some works showing everyday events occurring on the doorstep of a private house such as milkmaids ringing the doorbell or receiving payment or boys asking for alms.

[3] These inventions had an important influence on Delft genre painters including Johannes Vermeer and Pieter de Hooch in particular in the compositional arrangements of people in interior spaces.

In the 1670s Maes's style further developed to reflect the lighter spirit of the times as he places his sitters in elegant gardens painted in light tones and with a free brushstroke.