Frederik Hendrik Kaemmerer
1839-1902 Dutch

The Minuet

Signed “F.H. Kaemmerer” (lower right)
Oil on canvas

Circa 1890

Canvas: 38 ½” high x 63” wide
Frame: 47” high x 70 ¾” wide
In this sensuous work entitled The Minuet, Dutch artist Frederik Hendrik Kaemmerer deftly juxtaposes the grace and gentility of polite society with its illicit and scantily disguised underpinnings. As the ladies and gentlemen dance in the foreground, the activities of the party’s other guests, including an officer’s harassment of a maid, slyly draw the viewer’s attention. Set in an open space among ruins and trampled flowers, Kaemmerer skillfully captures the natural aspects of human