England, as has been so often the case, appreciated Maes more wisely than Holland, with the result that some of his best pictures are here.
But one must go to the Ryks Museum in Amsterdam to see his finest work of all--"The Endless Prayer," No.

1501, reproduced on the opposite page.

We have at the National Gallery or the Wallace Collection no Maes equal to this.

His "Card players," however, at the National Gallery, a free bold canvas, more in the manner of Velasquez than of his immediate master, is in its way almost as interesting.
To "The Endless Prayer" one feels that Maes's master, Rembrandt, could have added nothing.

It is even conceivable that he might have injured it by some touch of asperity.