Elderly Couple in an InteriorFrans van Mieris(Leiden 1635 – 1681 Leiden)

ca. 1650–55
oil on panel
52 x 39.6 cm
FM-100© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Elderly Couple in an Interior
Page 2 of 6

How to cite
Buvelot, Quentin. “Elderly Couple in an Interior” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited by Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–23. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/ (archivedDecember 2023).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

Frans van Mieris the Elder’s fame rests largely on elegant paintings depicting the daily

Comparative Figuresaffairs of wealthy citizens (see Woman with a Lapdog, Accompanied by a
Maidservant, FM-105; Woman Reading and a Man Seated at a Table, FM-107; andYoung Woman Feeding a Parrot, FM-112), but he he began his career by representing
the lower classes. This early work, datable to 1650–55, shows an elderly couple in a
simple interior, the man lighting his pipe with a burning coal, the woman plucking aduck. The subject of women cleaning and preparing food for the family was oftenfeatured by Dutch artists from this period, particularly those from Leiden, as, forexample, in a comparable scene from the mid-1650s by Abraham de Pape (before1621–66) (fig 1).[1] In Van Mieris’s painting, the man turns in his chair to look at theviewer, as though urging us to acknowledge the woman’s domestic virtue. Sheconcentrates entirely on her task, and although she has endeavored to save the bird’sfeathers in a wicker basket (the apparent cleanliness of the house is another example

Fig 1. Abraham de Pape, Old Woman
Plucking a Rooster, ca. 1650–55, oil onpanel, 49 x 41 cm, The Royal Picture
Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague, 138of her virtues as a housewife), some have fallen on the wooden floor in front of her.
Van Mieris depicted the elderly man lighting his pipe because this motif enhanced therealistic character of the scene: burning embers only glow in the bowl of the pipe
when a smoker actually inhales. He adapted this motif from his teacher Gerrit Dou(1613–75), who included it at least twice in his paintings, once around 1635 when hedepicted an elderly man lighting a pipe,[2] and a second time around 1645, when hemade an illusionistic painting in which an artist leans out of a window niche holding alit pipe in his hand.[3]Although Van Mieris was greatly influenced by Dou’s style and subject matter, hewould quickly distinguish himself from his master. Even in his early paintings oneFig 2. Frans van Mieris the Elder,
Saying Grace, ca. 1650–55, oil on
panel, 34.3 x 40 cm, National Galleryof Art, Washington D.C., Corcoran
Collection (William A. ClarkCollection), 2014.136.31© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Elderly Couple in an Interior
Page 3 of 6

can detect that Van Mieris, in the true spirit of aemulatio, strove to outdo his masterin a number of ways. For example, around 1655 he began to paint with a luminosity
unknown to his master, and he combined this heightened concern for the reflectionsof sunlight on objects with an increased precision in handling.[4] Here, he hasilluminated the protagonists with sunlight falling into the room through a leaded-glass
window. Van Mieris silhouetted the figures against a background shrouded indarkness, where one can barely make out the curtain of a bed and a bed pan. In theforeground he grouped together a number of domestic items—a broom, a bucket, anda shoe—to create a repoussoir that helps establish a sense of spatial recession.
Van Mieris’s early works do not yet reveal the highly sophisticated palette of his lateryears, but they are not at all limited in color. In his early paintings he favored broad
areas with strong local colors, among them vivid reds, blues and yellows. The rustic
reds in one of Van Mieris’s signed paintings, A Peasant Meal, and the relatively
unblended blues and yellows in Saying Grace (fig 2) are cases in point.[5] Theexistence of such strong reds in Elderly Couple in an Interior is one basis for
attributing this unsigned work to the young Van Mieris. Moreover, a number ofobjects in this painting are found in Van Mieris’s other early works, including asimilarly designed birdcage placed before the window in A Peasant Meal and an
identical chair in Saying Grace.[6] Finally, the shape of the curved wooden beams inroom’s interior are comparable to those in the latter work. It is striking that theiconography of these early works is uniformly positive.
When this painting was in the collection of the Barons Fisher, it was believed to be by
the Leiden painter Abraham de Pape (before 1621–66).[7] Later, in 1991, at a public
sale in London, the painting was attributed to another Leiden artist, Dominicus vanTol (ca. 1635–76).[8] The correct attribution to Van Mieris was made by Otto
Naumann.[9]- Quentin Buvelot, 2017

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Elderly Couple in an Interior
Page 4 of 6Endnotes
1. Eric Jan Sluijter, Marlies Enklaar, and Paul Nieuwenhuizen, eds., et al., Leidse fijnschilders: van Gerrit
Dou tot Frans van Mieris de Jonge, 1630–1760 (Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal)(Zwolle, 1988), no. 62, ill.; Quentin Buvelot, Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis: A Summary Catalogue,(The Hague, 2004), 230–32, no. 130, ill.
2. Private collection; see Gerrit Dou, 1613–1675: Master Painter in the Age of Rembrandt, ed. Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; London, Dulwich Picture Gallery;
The Hague, Mauritshuis) (Zwolle., 2000), no. 5.
3. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. SK-A-86; see Gerrit Dou, 1613–1675: Master Painter in the Age ofRembrandt, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; London,Dulwich Picture Gallery; The Hague, Mauritshuis) (Zwolle, 2000), no. 16.
4. 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), 28.
5. Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 2:11, no. 6; and2:7–8, no. 1; Quentin Buvelot, ed., Frans van Mieris 1635–1681 (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis;
Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) (Zwolle, 2005), 76–78, no. 3, and 29, fig. 1.
6. In the present painting, a vertical shadow to the right of the window shows through the birdcage,
indicating that the cage was added at a later stage by the artist, who apparently made a number ofcompositional changes during the paint stage, as was pointed out in a report by Annette Rupprecht,
paintings conservator.
7. Castle Museum. Dutch Paintings from East Anglia (Exh. cat. Norwich, Castle Museum) (Norwich,1966), 14, no. 32.
8. See Provenance.
9. 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), 28, 29, fig. 2, 216 n. 1, 238, no.
122.

ProvenancePossibly Matheus van Noort (his sale, Voorschoten, 29 April 1845, no. 14)
Possibly Cecil Vavasseur (1868–1955), 2nd Baron Fisher; by inheritance to John Vavasseur(1921–2012), 3rd Baron Fisher, Kilverston Hall, Thetford, Norfolk [as by Abraham de Pape].
(Christie’s, London, 13 December 1991, no. 152 [as “Attributed to Dominicus van Tol”]).
© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Elderly Couple in an Interior
Page 5 of 6

[Otto Naumann, Ltd., New York, 1991–92].
Dr. Paul S. Barr, Suffern, New York, 1992.
[Otto Naumann, Ltd., New York, 1992].
Bert van Deun, Oberägeri, Switzerland, 1996 [Otto Naumann, Ltd., New York, 2004].
From whom acquired by the present owner.

Exhibition History
King’s Lynn, Guildhall of Saint George, King’s Lynn Festival, “Loan Exhibition of 17th-Century Dutch
Oil Paintings,” 19 July–2 August 1952, no. 20.
Norwich, Castle Museum, “Dutch Paintings from East Anglia,” 20 July–29 August 1966, 14, no. 32 [asby Abraham de Pape, lent by Lord Fisher].
Leiden, Museum de Lakenhal, “Gerrit Dou: The Leiden Collection From New York,” 9 March–31August 2014 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The LeidenCollection,” 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 [lent by the presentowner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpiecesof The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018 [lent by the present owner].
St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces ofThe Leiden Collection,” 5 September 2018–13 January 2019 [lent by the present owner].

References
Guildhall of St. George. Loan Exhibition of 17th Century Dutch Oil Paintings. Exh. cat. King’s Lynn,
Guildhall of St. George. King’s Lynn, 1952, no. 20.
Castle Museum. Dutch Paintings from East Anglia. Exh. cat. Norwich, Castle Museum. Norwich, 1966,
14, no. 32.
Naumann, Otto. “Frans van Mieris’ Personal Style.” In Frans van Mieris 1635–1681. Edited by Quentin
Buvelot, 28, 29, no. 2, 216 n. 1, 238, no. 122. Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis; Washington, D.C.,
National Gallery of Art. Zwolle, 2005.
© 2024 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Elderly Couple in an Interior
Page 6 of 6

Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Elderly Couple in an Interior.” In Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 92; 180, no. 36. Translated by Li Ying. Exh. cat.
Beijing, National Museum of China. Beijing, 2017.
Long Museum, West Bund. Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund. Shanghai, 2017, 158–59.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Elderly Couple in an Interior.” In The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 130–31; 238, no. 32. Translated byDaria Babich and Daria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; St.
Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.

Technical Summary
The support is a single plank of vertically grained, rectangular wedge-shaped oak with diagonally orientedrays.[1] The panel is unthinned and uncradled, has bevels along all but the thinner vertical edge, and hasmechanical toolmarks along the nonbeveled panel interior. On the verso is a gold wax collection seal, three
black stencils, and an illegible pen inscription on a paper tape remnant, but no paper labels, import stamps or
panel maker’s mark.
A thinly and evenly applied white ground accentuates the wood grain and spills over onto the paneledges. The paint covers the ground completely and has been applied smoothly in thin layers with lowbrushmarking and transparent glazing light over dark. In raking light the vertical wood grain is pronounced,
as are the outer contours and drapery folds of both figures’ clothes, the chairs they sit on, the wicker basket,
and the wooden bucket.
The painting is unsigned and undated.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers. Visible
compositional changes include the male figure’s proper right hand and pipe lighter, which were shifted closer
to his torso. The shape of his hat was also altered.
The painting was cleaned and restored in 2004 and remains in an excellent state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

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

© 2024 The Leiden Collection