WILLEM VAN MIERIS | Circe begging Ulysses for mercy after he has resisted her drugged cup

Baron Gerard Godfried Taets van Amerongen;

His sale, Amsterdam, Philippus Van der Schley, 3 July 1805, lot 30;

With Pierre-Joseph Lafontaine, London;

His sale, London, Christie's, 13 June 1807, lot 20, for £99–15s to Hyman Collins;

Thomas Hamlet (1770–1853), London;

By whom offered, Paris, C.P. Martin, 31 July 1833, lot 89, where presumably unsold;

By whom sold, London, Robins, 24 March 1834, lot 17, for £105 to Piddel [?];

Unknown sale, (announced in Newspaper), 15 February 1984, reproduced;

With Christophe Janet, New York, 1984;

Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 9 April 1986, lot 65, when acquired.

New York, Christophe Janet, The Intimate Vision, 19 March – 21 April 1984;

Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, De Hollandse Fijn Schilders, van Gerard Dou tot Adriaen van der Werff, November 1989 – February 1990;

Rotterdam 2008, no. 86.

The SØR Rusche Collection has been exhibited extensively over the last two decades. Please click here for further information.

J. Smith, Supplement to the Catalogue Raisonné..., vol IX, London 1892, p. 62, cat. no. 31;

C. Hofstede de Groot, A catalogue raisonné..., vol. X, Esslingen 1926, p. 126, cat. no. 85;

P. Hecht, Dutch painters. From Gerard Dou to Adriaen van der Werf, Amsterdam 1989, p. 98, reproduced fig. 18a;

F. Scholten, 'Een ijvore Mars van Francis, de beeldsnijder van bossuit en de familie de la Court', in Rijksmuseum Bulletin, Amsterdam 1999, vol. 47, p. 38 and 40, under cat. no. 50, reproduced p. 42, fig. 19;

Rotterdam 2008, p. 93, reproduced no. 86;

Raupp 2010, pp. 250–55, cat. no. 40, reproduced in colour. 

Willem van Mieris belongs to the second generation of Leiden fijnschilder painters – artists working in the style pioneered by Gerrit Dou, creating works distinguished by meticulously-executed, exquisite details and smooth surfaces. Trained in the workshop of his father, Frans van Mieris, Willem was particularly interested in the idealisation of the female nude, following his study of classical sculpture. This preoccupation is clearly reflected here in the elegant figure of Circe.

A second treatment of this theme by Van Mieris, also on panel but of larger dimensions (33 x 44 cm.) and of a landscape format, is in the collection of the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska.(1)

1 Inv. no. 1995.20; signed and dated 1690.