  We present near infrared observations of the red gravitational lens system
MG0414+0534. Our images are of sufficient quality to allow photometry of all
four QSO images and the lens galaxy. The observations show that the K-band
brightnesses of the components are more similar to the radio brightnesses than
to the optical and thus support the notion that the system is highly reddened.
The differing brightnesses at visible wavelengths are interpreted as variable
amounts of extinction in the lens galaxy. The lens galaxy is detected at K-band
and is as red as any other known galaxy of comparable apparent magnitude. An
estimate of the redshift of the lens galaxy of 0.45 < z < 0.6 is determined
from the Faber-Jackson relation and photometric considerations. By extension we
argue that other very red field galaxies may contain large amounts of dust.
K-band spectra of the individual components show no difference in the H-alpha
equivalent widths among the components. This is evidence against significant
microlensing.
