© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Lady
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Portrait of a Lady

1673

Frans van Mieris(Leiden 1635 – 1681 Leiden)

oil on panel with arched top
23 x 17 cm
signed and dated in dark paint on lowest stairriser, lower left corner: “F van Mieris. 1673”
FM-109Currently on view at: The National Museum ofChina, Beijing

How To Cite
Buvelot, Quentin. "Portrait of a Lady." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.
New York, 2017.
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© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Lady
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The trend toward stylization of Frans van Mieris’s later genre paintings isComparative Figures

also apparent in his late portraits, among them this colorful Portrait of aLady. In this well-preserved panel from 1673, a lady stands in an interior
and gazes out at the viewer as she gracefully rests her right hand on herleft wrist. She wears large, decorative silver earrings and a ring on the littlefinger of her left hand. The woman is dressed in the latest fashion, with thegold-thread braiding of her fine satin dress also incorporated into her hair.
Her dark velvet shawl helps set off the smooth skin of her pale arms andhands.
The décor of the room is sparse but elegant. Hanging above a chair at theright is a mirror, which appears to show the reflection of a curtain hanging
over a window. The simple black frame of the mirror is decorated at thetop by a flourish of blue and pink ribbons, and at the bottom we see a small
white object. Behind the woman is a small flight of steps, where Van Mieris
inscribed his signature and the date of the painting.[1] An arched doorway

Fig 1. Frans van Mieris theElder, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1637,
panel with arched top, 23.5 x 17cm, Buchkinghamshire AscottHouse, ©National Trustat the top of the landing leads to a room furnished with a table covered by
an expensive Persian rug. On the wall of this back room, partly obscuredby the doorframe, is a small ornamental rack with twisted upright supports
topped by decorative knobs. Two large silver vessels are displayed on its
bottom shelf.[2]Van Mieris painted this stunning portrait as a pendant to one depicting thewoman’s husband.[3] The signature on this pendant is incorporated in arather conspicuous manner, as Van Mieris added the monogram “FvM” tothe piece of paper in the man’s hands but left out the date altogether(fig1). A wooden sphere on the handrail on which the man’s elbow rests
probably denotes the virtuousness of the sitter, who is shown in a fairly
relaxed pose as he gazes toward his wife.[4] His jacket with the large red
obi is a so-called Japonsche rock, which was worn only inside the house.
Like his fancy collar, it was the height of contemporary fashion and very
expensive, demonstrating both his wealth and cultured demeanor.
In many seventeenth-century portraits of couples, the man is depicted on
the left side of the painting and the woman on the right, in accordance withheraldic tradition,[5] but Van Mieris did not follow this custom with thesependants. As in his pendant portraits from 1669 (FM-110.a and 110.b),
Van Mieris linked the two works together through the man’s gaze, which is
directed at his wife.[6] He also mirrored compositional elements within the© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Lady
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arch-shaped panels, including a staircase into a back room and a large
black frame hanging near the sitter.
Although the identity of this couple is now unknown, we can glean some
information about the sitters from the paintings. The woman’s clothing andprecious earrings, which Van Mieris has rendered with such meticulous
care, reflect the couple’s prosperity. The black frame in the husband’s
portrait contains a map of a fortified city with the inscription “Smyrne,”
suggesting that he had trading relations with Smyrna (now called Izmir),the ancient port city of present-day Turkey.[7] Unfortunately, provenanceinformation fails to shed any light on the couple’s identity, as by the timethese paintings first appeared in the art market the names of the sitters
had been lost. In fact, at some point the two paintings actually ended up in
different

collections.

TheAmsterdam

collector

Nicolaas[8](1733–76) is the earliest known owner of the woman’s portrait.

Nieuhoff
It says agreat deal about Van Mieris’s reputation in the eighteenth century that hisportrait of a woman fetched 700 guilders at the sale of the Nieuhoff
Collection, whereas Vermeer’s now much-loved Woman Holding aBalance (National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.) was sold for theconsiderably lesser sum of 235 guilders.[9]-Quentin Buvelot© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Lady
Page 5 of 8Endnotes
1. Van Mieris had already used this type of composition in another genre scene:The Doctor’s
Visit from 1657 in Vienna, which is the artist’s earliest dated painting (Otto Naumann,Frans
van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. [Doornspijk, 1981], 2:22–23, no. 20; Quentin
Buvelot, ed., Frans van Mieris 1635–1681 (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis; Washington
D.C., National Gallery of Art) (New Haven, 2005), no. 13).
2. A pentimento is discernible around this rack: Van Mieris had initially painted it somewhat
more to the left on the wall.
3. Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981),
2:105–6, no. 95; Quentin Buvelot, ed., Frans van Mieris 1635–1681 (Exh. cat. The Hague,Mauritshuis; Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) (New Haven, 2005), 197, 199, fig.
44a.

4. See Eddy de Jongh, Kwesties van betekenis: Thema en motief in de Nederlandse
schilderkunst van de zeventiende eeuw (Leiden, 1995), 222–30.
5. See Eddy de Jongh, Portretten van echt en trouw: Huwelijk en gezin in de Nederlandse
kunst van de zeventiende eeuw (Exh. cat. Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum) (Haarlem, 1986),
36–40; Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “[Review of B. Broos, A. van Suchtelen, with contributions by
Q. Buvelot et al., Portraits in the Mauritshuis, 1430–1790 (The Hague and Zwolle, 2004)],”
Burlington Magazine 148 (2006): 124.
6. He did not follow this same approach, however, in the pendant portraits of himself and hiswife; see Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk,1981), 1:139.
7. Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 1:140;
2:105 (with more details of the inscription on the map).
8. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., ed., Johannes Vermeer (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Galleryof Art; The Hague, Mauritshuis) (New Haven, 1995), 144, 145 n. 24. It is curious that theportrait of the husband was not part of the Nieuhoff sale in 1777, yet the two paintings weresold together only four years later, as part of the sale of the Tak Collection (see Provenance).
Lot 9, the male portrait, went to a certain “Van der Vinne,” and the portrait discussed here to“Nijman,” i. e., Jan Danser Nijman, a famous Amsterdam collector who owned several
paintings by Vermeer (see ibid., 198).
9. See Provenance; for the Vermeer, see Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Dutch Paintings of theSeventeenth Century, The Collection of the National Gallery of Art Systematic
Catalogues (Washington D.C., 1995), 371–77, no. 1942.9.97; Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., ed.,© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Lady
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Johannes Vermeer (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; The Hague,Mauritshuis) (New Haven, 1995), no. 10.

ProvenanceNicolaas Nieuhoff, Amsterdam, before 1776 (his sale, Amsterdam, 14–17 April 1777, no.
121 [Yver for f 700]).
[Pieter Yver, Amsterdam].
Jan Tak, Leiden (his sale, Zoeterwoude, 5 September 1781, no. 10 [Nijman for f 475]).
Jan Danser Nijman, Amsterdam [not in his sale, Amsterdam, 16 August 1797].
Chevalier François Xavier de Burtin, before 1818 (his sale, Brussels, 21 July 1819, no. 103 [f3,000]).
Baron Anthony Nathan Rothschild, London, by 1842–76; by descent to his daughter, Annie
Yorke, born Rothschild, London, 1876–1926 (her sale, Christie’s, London, 6 May 1927, no.
34).
[Edouard Jonas, Paris, 1929].
Mrs. Joseph Heine, formerly Mrs. I. D. Levy, New York (her sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries,New York, 24–25 November 1944, no. 242).
Private collection, California (sale, Christie’s, New York, 31 May 1990, no. 148).
[Galerie Sankt Lucas, Vienna, 1990–91; Johnny van Haeften, London, 1992; Otto NaumannLtd., 1993].
Dr. Hinrich Bisschof, Berlin.
[Johnny van Haeften Ltd., London, 2004].
From whom acquired by the present owner.

Exhibition HistoryLondon, Johnny van Haeften Ltd., “Dutch and Flemish Old Master Paintings,” 1992, no. 20.
The Hague, Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, “Frans van Mieris 1635–1681: PaintedPerfection,” 1 October 2005–22 January 2006, no. 44 [lent by the present owner].
Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art, “Amorous Intrigues and Painterly Refinement: The
Art of Frans van Mieris,” 26 February–21 May 2006, no. 44 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Lady
Page 7 of 8Leiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].

References
Smith, John. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish andFrench Painters. 9 vols. London, 1829–42, 1:72–73, no. 41; suppl., 1842, 9:51, no. 56.
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke derhervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols. Esslingen andParis, 1907–28. London, 1928, 10:87, no. 323.
Naumann, Otto. Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder . 2 vols. Doornspijk, 1981,1:139–40; 2:105, no. 94.
Naumann, Otto. “Frans van Mieris d. Ä.” In Galerie Sankt Lucas. Sales cat. Galerie Sankt
Lucas, Vienna, 1990–91, no. 12.
Naumann, Otto. “Frans van Mieris the Elder.” In Dutch and Flemish Old Master Paintings .
Sales cat. Johnny van Haeften, Ltd. London, 1992, no. 20.
Mai, Ekkehard, ed. Das Kabinett des Sammlers: Gemälde vom XV. bis XVIII. Jahrhundert .
Cologne, 1993, 180–82, no. 72.
Debaisieux, François. Caen Musée des Beaux-Arts: Peintures des écoles étrangères .
Caen, 1994, 260.
Naumann, Otto, ed. Inaugural Exhibition of Old Master Paintings . Exh. cat. New York, Otto
Naumann, Ltd. Turin, 1995, “Paintings Sold in the Past,” n.p., under “1993.”
Naumann, Otto and Buvelot, Quentin. In Frans van Mieris 1635–1681. Edited by Quentin
Buvelot, 41, 197–99, 230, no. 44, 236, no. 94. Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis;
Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art. New Haven, 2005.

Technical Summary
The support is a single plank of horizontally grained but vertically oriented rectangular-shaped
oak with an arched upper edge.[1] The unthinned and uncradled panel has bevels around all fouredges. The panel reverse has one red wax collection seal, a stencil, and four old paper labels but
no import stamps, panel maker’s marks or machine tool marks.
A light brown ground has been thinly and evenly applied followed by a light gray underlayer. The
paint has been applied in successive thin layers with low brushmarking and transparent glazing,
and the contours of the forms are slightly raised. The black and gold ribbon and the lace along
the edge of the figure’s proper right sleeve are extremely finely rendered, and the white apron is© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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sheer enough so that the underlying mauve jacket and blue skirt show through.
The painting is signed and dated in dark paint on the lowest stair riser along the lower left corner.
No underdrawing or compositional changes are readily apparent in infrared images captured at
780–1000 nanometers. The X-radiograph suggests a slight change in position of the thumb of
the figure’s proper left hand, and a diagonal line visible in raking light above the figure’s headmay relate to an earlier form.
The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition and remains in an
excellent state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on visual examinaton of the X-radiograph andpanel reverse images by Ian Tyers. According to Ian Tyers, the panel has good potential for
dendrochronology.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection