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Man Tuning a Violin
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Man Tuning a Violin
Frans van Mieris(Leiden 1635 – 1681 Leiden)

1680
oil on panel
19.3 x 15.2 cm
signed and dated in dark paint, upper rightcorner: “Fvan. Mieris. fect / 1680”
FM-111

How to cite
Buvelot, Quentin. “Man Tuning a Violin” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed. Edited by Arthur
K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/man-tuning-a-violin/ (archivedMay 2020).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive ismanaged by a permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrativeoccurs.

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Paintings of musicians, either playing or tuning an instrument, wereComparative Figures

extremely popular in the Dutch Republic, a testament to the appeal of musicin that culture, particularly among the upper classes. Here, a young man
dressed in a fancy black satin cloak listens intently to the sounds of the violin
he is tuning, the half-smile on his face indicating that he is pleased with theresults. He is seated in an elegant but dimly lit interior with monumental
pilasters, one of which is just behind him. A large roemer, conspicuously
filled with white wine, is on the table in front of him, as are two well-worn
portfolios, probably containing sheet music, and a large red velvet cap with agreen feather. Also on the table is a thick tome with finger indexing on thepages, indicating that the young man’s dedication to music is only one
aspect of his scholarly concerns. Paintings of musicians also evokedassociations with harmony and love, ones frequently expressed in the poetry
and emblem books of the period. For example, Jacob Cats (1577–1660), in
his Sinne- en Minnebeelden of 1618, wrote a poem accompanying anFig 1. “Quid non sentit amor,”engraving from Jacob Cats,Proteus, ofte, Minne-beeldenverandert in sinne-beelden(Rotterdam, 1627)

illustration of a man tuning his lute (fig 1) that describes this activity as
symbolic of two hearts “that vibrate to the same tune.”[1]Throughout his career, Frans van Mieris excelled in rendering different typesof materials, including, as in this instance, glass, marble, and the fabric of thecloak and cap. This remarkable ability was one reason he achieved such
inordinate fame during his lifetime. He often utilized this skill to emulate
reality, sometimes also creating trompe l’oeil images that deceive the eye
into believing that a painted image is reality itself.[2] During the latter part ofhis career, however, at the time he painted this work, Van Mieris’s art had
become slicker and harder. He no longer sought to create the semblance ofreality, but used his touch to create engaging but artificial images. Rhythmic
accents that play across his fabrics bring energy and color to his paintings,

Fig 2. X-radiograph of Man Tuninga Violin, FM-111 (image turned
upside down)

but do not deceive the viewer into thinking them real. He also began toexaggerate expressions, as in the upward glance and half smile enlivening
this young man’s face.
The exaggerated bend of the man’s left arm, which neatly echoes one of thehighlighted folds of the man’s shimmering cloak, may have been adeliberate attempt to convey elegance and refinement, as he uses thissweeping gesture in some of his other late paintings.[3] This attitude mayhave its roots in the manuals of civility that were published in the Dutch
Republic during the seventeenth century.[4] These codes of manners werecalled welstand, a word that refers to proper manners in the French tradition.
One of the most popular French etiquette guides, Antoine de Courtin’s Suite

Fig 3. Frans van Mieris the Elder,
A Woman Tuning a Theorbo, with© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Man Tuning a Violin
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de la civilité française of 1671, was translated into Dutch the following year.[5]The large roemer filled with wine brings to mind Van Mieris’s documented

a Company in the Background,
1665, oil on panel, 22 x 17.5 cm,
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, SKA-262

alcohol abuse, which seems to have caused his affairs to unravel rapidly inthe last years of his life. In a letter dated 1675, one of Van Mieris’s patrons
wrote that Cunera van der Cock, the artist’s wife, requested that some of thefee Van Mieris was owed for a painting be paid directly to her, without her
husband’s knowledge, because the money would otherwise disappear “likeacid on an etching plate.”[6] It is not impossible that the artist, who is known
to have had a great sense of humor, even alluded to his drinking problems inthis work by including the large roemer.
Technical research has determined that Van Mieris reused an existing panel
in painting this work (fig 2). When turned upside down, an X-radiograph ofthe painting shows a knee-length portrait of a lady, just as in Woman with aLapdog, Accompanied by a Maidservant, also from 1680 (see FM-105). Lesspronounced, but clearly visible on the X-radiograph, is a rectangular shape inthe same position as the letter in Woman with a Lapdog.[7] Probably Van
Mieris started another version of that painting, but changed his mind andreused the panel for the present work.[8] The subject of a figure tuning astring instrument had already been introduced by the artist as early as 1665
in the Rijksmuseum’s A Woman Tuning a Theorbo, with a Company in theBackground (fig 3). This painting, which is almost the same size as Man
Tuning a Violin, was once thought to have also been executed in 1680.[9]- Quentin Buvelot, 2017

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Man Tuning a Violin
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1. “Twee herten op eenen toon.” Jacob Cats, Proteus, ofte, Minne-beelden verandert in sinnebeelden (Rotterdam, 1627), 86. See Eddy de Jongh, Tot lering en vermaak: Betekenissen
van Hollandse genrevoorstellingen uit de zeventiende eeuw (Exh, cat. Amsterdam,Rijksmuseum) (Amsterdam, 1976), 106 and fig. 21b; see also Magda Kyrova, “Music inSeventeenth-Century Dutch Painting,” in The Hoogsteder Exhibition of Music and Painting inthe Golden Age, ed. Edwin Buijsen and Louis Peter Grijp (Exh. cat. The Hague, Hoogsteder& Hoogsteder; Antwerp, Hessenhuis Museum) (Zwolle, 1994), 31–62, esp. 41 and fig. 8.
2. See, for example, Quentin Buvelot, Otto Naumann, and Eddy de Jongh,, Frans van Mieris
1635–1681, ed. Quentin Buvelot (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis; Washington D.C.,
National Gallery of Art) (Zwolle, 2005), 117–19, no. 16.
3. Otto Naumann in Quentin Buvelot, ed., Frans van Mieris 1635–1681 (Exh. cat. The Hague,Mauritshuis; Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) (Zwolle, 2005), 37.
4. Otto Naumann in Frans van Mieris 1635–1681, ed. Quentin Buvelot (Exh. cat. The Hague,
Mauritshuis; Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) (Zwolle, 2005), 38.
5. Nieuwe verhandeling van de welgemanierheidt, welke in Vrankryk onder fraaye lieden
gebruikelyk is (New Treatise on Good Manners, Customary in France among Fine People);
Otto Naumann in Frans van Mieris 1635–1681, ed. Quentin Buvelot (Exh. cat. The Hague,Mauritshuis; Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) (Zwolle, 2005), 38.
6. Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 1: 31,183–84.
7. This was pointed out in a report of August 2011 by Annette Rupprecht, paintings conservator.
8. The versions described by Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols.
(Doornspijk, 1981), 2: 125, nos. 120 a–c, are almost certainly identical to the present painting;as such, the provenances of these three previously called “versions” are actually theprovenance of the painting discussed here, of which no copies are known.
9. The signature and date of the Amsterdam painting were discovered during the restoration of
the panel in 2006 by the Rijksmuseum, where it was seen by the present author. The painting
has since been published in Lieneke Nijkamp and Zeph Benders, “Nieuw licht op een
nachtstuk van Frans van Mieris,” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 55 (2007): 208–17 and figs.
1–3. Otto Naumann had originally dated the painting to about 1680; see Otto Naumann,Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 2: 124, no. 119 andcaption to fig. 119.

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Man Tuning a Violin
Page 6 of 8Provenance
Gerard Bicker van Swieten, The Hague (sale, The Hague, 12 April 1741, no. 58 [250 guildersto De Waart but still in Bicker van Swieten’s possession in 1752]; sale, The Hague, 4 April
1755, no. 23 [161 guilders]).
(De Montribloud Sale, Paris, 9 February 1784, no. 31).
Phillipe Panne, London (sale, Christie’s, London, 26 March 1819, no. 103 [9 guineas toWard].
Ludovic de Spiridon, Rome, 1922–28 (his sale, Muller, Amsterdam, 19 June 1928, no. 60, assigned and dated 1650).
Private collection, Germany (sale, Flechtheim, Helbing, Paffrath, Berlin, 11 March 1933, no.
60).
[Galerie Voltaire, Paris, 1975].
Private collection, Finland, by 1981.
(Sale, Christie’s, London, 10 July 1998, no. 33; sale, Christie’s, New York, 15 October 1998,no. 64).
[Johnny van Haeften Ltd., London, 2002].
David Blank, Greenwich, CT, until 2005 [Salomon Lilian B. V., Amsterdam].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2005.

Exhibition History
Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, “Small Treasures: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, andTheir Contemporaries,” 12 October 2014–4 January 2015, no. 25 [lent by the present owner].
Dallas Museum of Art, “Vermeer Suite: Music in 17th-Century Dutch Painting,” 17 January
2016–21 August 2016 [lent by the present owner].

References
Hoet, Gerard, and Pieter Terwesten. Catalogus of Naamlyst van Schilderyen, met derzelver
pryzen, zedert een langen reeks van jaaren zoo. 3 vols. The Hague, 1752–70, 2: 15, 463;
3:117, no. 23.
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Man Tuning a Violin
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Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith. Edited and translatedby Edward G. Hawke, 10: 48, no. 184. 8 vols. London, 1907–28. Originally published as
Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen
Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28.
Naumann, Otto. Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder. 2 vols. Doornspijk, 1981, 1:78–80,2:124–25, no. 120.
Buvelot, Quentin, Otto Naumann, and Eddy de Jongh. Frans van Mieris 1635–1681. Editedby Quentin Buvelot, 238, no. 120. Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis; Washington, National
Gallery of Art. Zwolle, 2005.
Weller, Dennis P. Small Treasures: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, and Their Contemporaries.
Exh. cat. Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art; Birmingham, Birmingham Museum of Art.
Raleigh, 2014, 143-145, no. 25.

Technical Summary
The support, a single plank of vertically grained, rectangular-shaped oak, has bevels on all foursides.[1] The unthinned and uncradled panel has machine tool marks along the lower left, a red
wax collection seal with an oval-shaped impression, and small paper label remnants but nocomplete paper labels, import stamps, stencils or panel maker’s marks along the panel reverse.
A light-colored ground has been evenly applied followed by paint applied smoothly in successive
thin layers with low brushmarking and transparent glazing, light over dark. In raking light, theindividual barbs of the green plume, the bright folds of the figure’s red velvet hat, and the white
pages of the book cantilevered over the table edge are slightly raised, as are the folds of thefigure’s satin drapery and the edges of the cover of the book located behind the hat.
The X-radiograph reveals an earlier composition: a three-quarter-length female figure, oriented
upside down with respect to the visible composition. This figure is strikingly similar to the woman
depicted in FM-105, a panel painting of nearly identical size, and a white, radio-opaque,parallelogram-shaped object located to the left of this female figure is similar in size andplacement to the letter with wax seal lying on the table in FM-105.[2] Fine aperture drying cracks
have formed through the brown background, and areas of white paint along the left edge relate to
the earlier composition, perhaps the putto on a dolphin in FM-105, as the earlier portrait isoriented upside down.
The painting is signed and dated in dark paint along the upper right corner.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images at 780–1000 nanometers. Further
investigation at wavelengths that penetrate further into the infrared region may provide additional
information.
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The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition and remains in agood state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on visual examination of the X-radiograph andpanel reverse images by Ian Tyers. According to Tyers, the panel has good potential for
dendrochronology.
2. FM-105 has an inlaid panel construction:
Inset panel dimensions: 19.3 cm H x 15.5 cm W
Outer panel dimensions: 20.5 cm H x 16.5 cm W

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