Jan van Mieris

With Hermsen, Paris (as Frans van Mieris the Elder);

From whom acquired by Gurlitt for the Museum in Linz, 28 September 1943;

Wallraf Richartz Museum, Köln, 29 December 1943 (according to Gurlitt's records, though it never entered the museum's holdings);

Private collection, France;

Offered, anonymous sale, Paris, Tajan, 15 December 2009, lot 42 (as Willem van Mieris);

Thereafter acquired by the present owners.

O. Naumann, Frans van Mieris The Elder, Doornspijk 1981, p. 137, cat. no. B27, reproduced fig. CB27 (as a possible collaboration between Frans van Mieris and Willem van Mieris);

M. van der Hut, Jan van Mieris (1660-1690): His Life and Work, 2021, cat. no. 26, reproduced in color (circa 1680).

Jan van Mieris, eldest son of the fijnschilder Frans van Mieris, likely painted this elegant balcony scene circa 1680. Fijnschilder— literally ‘fine painting’— is the nineteenth-century term that came to define these meticulously-executed paintings with exquisite details and smooth surfaces, typically painted on a small scale, with some features supposedly executed with brushes made from a single hair. In the present painting a stylish woman looks toward the viewer, leaning over a balustrade, partly draped with an richly woven imported carpet. Her mauve velvet cloak is rendered in a delicate manner that instantly reminds one of Jan’s father, Frans. In her left hand, the woman holds an ornately decorated and gilt hand mirror with an ebony handle. In front of her, a tortoiseshell jewelry box is open on the balustrade, revealing a glimpse of her lustrous pearl necklace. With a masterful brush and virtuoso attention to detail, Jan van Mieris defines these opulent objects and their various textures with a level of verisimilitude for which the Leiden fijnschilders were so admired during their lifetime and still today.

Before a recent cleaning revealed Jan’s signature, the present painting was long thought to be the work of his father, possibly in collaboration with his youngest son, Willem. A signed painting by Frans van Mieris, Woman Weeping, features a nearly identical tortoiseshell coffer and testifies to the profound artistic influence of the master on his eldest son and pupil, Jan.¹

¹ Mount Stuart Trust, Isle of Bute, oil on panel, 19 by 15.3 cm.