WILLEM VAN MIERIS | THE VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH THE INFANT SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST IN A LANDSCAPE

Sir Henry Bankes (1757–1834), Kingston Lacy House, Dorset;

By inheritance to the Earl of Brownlow, Belton House, Lincolnshire, 1805;

His sale, Belton House, Christie's, 30 April – 2 May 1984, lot 575, when acquired.

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

C. Hofstede de Groot, A catalogue raisonné..., vol. X, London 1928, p. 113, cat. no. 25;

H.-J. Raupp (ed.), Niederländische Malerei des. 17. Jahrhunderts der SØR Rusche-Sammlung, vol. 4, Historien und Allegorien, Münster/Hamburg/London 2010, pp. 256–59, cat. no. 41, reproduced in colour.

Willem van Mieris was the son of Frans van Mieris the Elder, the leading member of the family of artists working in Leiden. Leiden was the centre of the fijnschilder tradition of painting, developed by Gerard Dou, and practised by artists including Van Mieris, Gabriel Metsu and Godfried Schalcken. Fijnschilder - literally ‘fine painting’ - is the term that, in the 19th century, came to define these meticulously-executed paintings with their exquisite details and smooth surfaces, typically painted on a small scale, with some features purportedly executed with brushes made from a single hair. 

Willem produced paintings in a wide range of subjects: historical, religious, mythological, portraiture, landscapes, and genre scenes, the last of which make up the majority of his œuvre, and as such the present subject is relatively rare.