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Portrait of a Lady
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Portrait of a Lady
Frans van Mieris(Leiden 1635 – 1681 Leiden)

1673
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-109How to cite
Buvelot, Quentin. “Portrait of a Lady” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed. Edited by Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/portrait-of-a-lady/ (archived May2020).
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.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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The trend toward stylization of Frans van Mieris’s later genre paintings is

Comparative Figures

also apparent in his late portraits, among them this colorful Portrait of a Lady.
In this well-preserved panel from 1673, a lady stands in an interior and gazesout at the viewer as she gracefully rests her right hand on her left wrist. Shewears large, decorative silver earrings and a ring on the little finger of her left
hand. The woman is dressed in the latest fashion, with the gold-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 and hands.
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 the top
by a flourish of blue and pink ribbons, and at the bottom we see a small whiteobject. 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 at

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 obscured by theFig 1. Frans van Mieris theElder, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1637,panel with arched top, 23.5 x 17cm, Buchkinghamshire AscottHouse, ©National Trust

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 (fig 1).
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 poseas 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 theleft 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 thearch-shaped panels, including a staircase into a back room and a large black
frame hanging near the sitter.
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Portrait of a Lady
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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,” suggestingthat he had trading relations with Smyrna (now called Izmir), the ancient port
city of present-day Turkey.[7] Unfortunately, provenance information fails toshed any light on the couple’s identity, as by the time these paintings first
appeared in the art market the names of the sitters had been lost. In fact, atsome point the two paintings actually ended up in different collections. The
Amsterdam collector Nicolaas Nieuhoff (1733–76) is the earliest known
owner of the woman’s portrait.[8] It says a great deal about Van Mieris’s
reputation in the eighteenth century that his portrait of a woman fetched 700
guilders at the sale of the Nieuhoff Collection, whereas Vermeer’s now muchloved Woman Holding a Balance (National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.)
was sold for the considerably lesser sum of 235 guilders.[9]- Quentin Buvelot, 2017

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Lady
Page 5 of 9Endnotes

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, Fransvan Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. [Doornspijk, 1981], 2:22–23, no. 20; 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) (NewHaven, 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, Otto Naumann, and Eddy de Jongh, Frans van Mieris 1635–1681,
ed. Quentin Buvelot (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis; Washington D.C., National Gallery ofArt) (New Haven, 2005), 197, 199, fig. 44a.

4. See Eddy De Jongh, Questions of meaning: theme and motif in Dutch seventeenth-centurypainting, trans. and ed. Michael Hoyle (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., The Collection of the National
GalleryofArt

Systemaitc

Catalogues:

DutchPaintingsoftheSeventeenth© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Lady
Page 6 of 9Century (Washington D.C., 1995), 371–77, no. 1942.9.97; Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., ed.,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 Bischoff, Berlin.
[Johnny van Haeften Ltd., London, 2004].
From whom acquired by the present owner.

Exhibition History
London, 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].
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Portrait of a Lady
Page 7 of 9Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from TheLeiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden
Age: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection,” 23 September 2017–25 February 2018 [lentby the present owner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018 [lent by the presentowner].
St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection,” 5 September 2018–13 January 2019 [lent by thepresent owner].
Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age.
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre,” 14 February–18 May
2019 [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. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch
Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith. Edited and translatedby Edward G. Hawke, 10: 87, no. 323. 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, 1:139–40;
2:105, no. 94.
Naumann, Otto. “Frans van Mieris d. Ä.” In Galerie Sanct Lucas. Sales cat. Galerie SanctLucas, 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, OttoNaumann, Ltd. Turin, 1995, “Paintings Sold in the Past”, n.p., under “1993.”© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Lady
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Buvelot, Quentin, Otto Naumann, and Eddy de Jongh. Frans van Mieris 1635–1681. Editedby Quentin Buvelot, 41, 197–99, 230, no. 44, 236, no. 94. Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis;
Washington, National Gallery of Art. Zwolle, 2005.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Portrait of a Lady.” In Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 98; 188, no. 35. Translated by LiYing. Exh. cat. Beijing, National Museum of China. Beijing, 2017.
Long Museum, West Bund. Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund.
Shanghai, 2017, 106–7.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Portrait of a Lady.” In The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 142–43; 239, no. 38.
Translated by Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State Museumof Fine Arts; St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.
Blanc, Jan. “Being Modern, Being Dutch: The Seventeenth-Century Invention of the GoldenAge.” In Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden
Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 43.
Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019. [Exhibition catalogue also publishedin French and Arabic.]
Ducos, Blaise, and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, eds. Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden
Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Exh. cat. Abu
Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019, 145, no. 67. [Exhibition catalogue also published inFrench and Arabic.]

Technical Summary
The support is a single plank of horizontally grained but vertically oriented rectangular-shaped oakwith 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. Thepaint 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 theedge of the figure’s proper right sleeve are extremely finely rendered, and the white apron issheer 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© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Portrait of a Lady
Page 9 of 9780–1000 nanometers. The X-radiograph suggests a slight change in position of the thumb of thefigure’s proper left hand, and a diagonal line visible in raking light above the figure’s head may
relate to an earlier form.
The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition and remains in anexcellent 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.

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