© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Child’s Lesson (Hannah Entrusting Her Son Samuel into the Care ofthe High Priest Eli?)Page 2 of 9Child’s Lesson (Hannah EntrustingHer Son Samuel into the Care of theHigh Priest Eli?)ca. 1656–57

Frans van Mieris(Leiden 1635 – 1681 Leiden)

signed in light-colored paint, lower left corner:

oil on panel with arched top
29.2 x 21.7 cm“F. van Mieris” ( “F” slightly cropped)
FM-102Currently on view at: Long Museum, Shanghai

How To Cite
Buvelot, Quentin. "Child’s Lesson (Hannah Entrusting Her Son Samuel into the Care of the High PriestEli?)." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
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Child’s Lesson (Hannah Entrusting Her Son Samuel into the Care ofthe High Priest Eli?)Page 3 of 9Child’s Lesson is one of Frans van Mieris’s early works, probably painted
around 1657.

[1]

Comparative Figures

In this evocative painting, a young mother tenderly holding

her son’s hand looks up at a kindly old man holding a book close to hisside. Van Mieris situated the three figures in a darkened interior before abrick arch. The dim light passing through the leaded-glass windows in aback room reveals a wooden flight of steps winding to the left, but all of thevisual attention rests on the three figures. The attractive woman, whowears a black headscarf, is dressed fashionably in a bluish-purple skirt
and a gold-colored upper garment with décolletage.[2] Her blond son,dressed in a buttoned jerkin, has laid the book he is reading on hismother’s lap beside his plumed cap. The refined rendering of thesegarments and feathers displays the Leiden artist’s great virtuosity even at
this early period of his career.[3]Fig 1. Gerard ter Borch, The
Reading Lesson, ca. 1652, oil onpanel, 27 x 25 cm, Musée duLouvre, Paris, Département desPeintures, Bequest of Louis LaCaze, 1869, MI 1006, Photo:
Gérard Blot, © RMN-GrandPalais / Art Resource, NY

Depictions of women and children in domestic interiors are frequently
found in Dutch art.[4] The most direct prototype for Child’s Lesson is anengaging painting by Gerard ter Borch (1617–81), The Reading Lesson,ca. 1652 (fig 1), which is one of a number of Ter Borch’s paintings thatinspired Van Mieris at various stages of his career.[5] In both paintings themother is seen in profile while her son, with long flowing locks, reads froma book in her lap. As in this instance, Ter Borch seems to have helped Van
Mieris develop his narrative style to convey a sense of emotional intimacy
between figures, which would become a hallmark of his mature style.
The motif of a mother teaching her children is rooted in allegorical imagesof Grammar, one of the seven liberal arts.[6] Sixteenth-century prints, suchas those made by Cornelis Drebbel after Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617)(fig 2), helped spread this motif to Dutch painters, who translated it into a
more contemporary context.[8] As in Drebbel’s print after Goltzius, a man ispresent in Van Mieris’s Child’s Lesson. With his advanced years, beard,

Fig 2. Cornelis Drebbel, after
Hendrick Goltzius, Grammar,
engraving, 164 x 128 mm,
Rijksmuseum,
Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam,
RP-P-BI-7173

brown coat and book, he exhibits all the characteristics of a scholar.
Perhaps he is a teacher who has come to give the boy extra instruction
and is smiling approvingly because he has found the mother giving her son
reading lessons.[9] The elderly man also serves a visual counterpoint to theelegant mother, with her smooth skin, and her young son, providing theartist the opportunity to contrast the differing ages of the three figures.
Van Mieris’s painting has, with good reason, been linked to the Old
Testament story of Hannah (I Samuel 1:24–28). Hannah was not able to© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Child’s Lesson (Hannah Entrusting Her Son Samuel into the Care ofthe High Priest Eli?)Page 4 of 9conceive a child until she had prayed for a son and promised to relinquish
him to the priesthood. It has been argued that Van Mieris depicted themoment at which Hannah entrusted her son Samuel into the care of thehigh priest Eli.[9] This interpretation would certainly explain the meaningful
gaze exchanged between the woman and the old man, as well as hisattire, which seems to be rather old-fashioned.
Van Mieris did occasionally paint history scenes in his later years, suchas Death of Lucretia from 1679 (see FM-103). Much like his friend Jan
Steen (1625/26–79), he often situated these scenes in seventeenthcentury domestic settings, as in his Jeroboam’s Wife with the Prophet
Ahijah, 1671, a scene from the Old Testament (fig 3).[10] Even though VanMieris did not situate the figures in a temple, as did other painters from theDutch Golden Age who portrayed Hannah entrusting her son Samuel toFig 3. Frans van Mieris the Elder,
Jeroboam’s Wife with the Prophet
Ahijah, 1671, oil on panel, 24 x 20cm, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille,
293, Photo: Quecq d’Henripret, ©
RMN-Grand Palais / ArtResource, NYEli, it is likely that the Leiden master was inspired by this biblical story inrendering this intimate scene.[11]-Quentin Buvelot© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Child’s Lesson (Hannah Entrusting Her Son Samuel into the Care ofthe High Priest Eli?)Page 5 of 9Endnotes
1. This dating was proposed verbally in 2005 to the author by Naumann, who had previously
dated it to circa 1662–63 (Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols.
[Doornspijk, 1981], 1:66, 2:61). Plietzsch had already proposed an earlier dating (EduardPlietzsch, Holländische und flämische Maler des 17. Jahrhunderts [Leipzig, 1960], 53).
2. The dress is comparable to that worn by the sitter of A Woman Holding a Black Feather(Portrait of Cunera van der Cock) , datable to 1658–60, in Öffentliche Kunstsammlung,Kunstmuseum, Basel (Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols.
[Doornspijk, 1981], 2:59–60, no. 48; Paul H. Boerlin,Im Lichte Hollands: Holländ. Malerei d.
17. Jh. aus d. Sammlungen d. Fürsten von Liechtenstein u. aus Schweizer Besit [Exh. cat.
Basel, Kunstmuseum] [Zurich, 1987], 164–65, no. 56), as already pointed out by Naumann,
2:60, and Meredith Hale in Dutch and Flemish Old Master Paintings (Sales cat. Johnny vanHaeften, Ltd.) (London, 2002), in no. 18, note 1.
3. The author has benefited greatly from Bieke van der Mark’s entry in Quentin Buvelot, ed.,Frans van Mieris 1635–1681 (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis; Washington D.C., National
Gallery of Art) (Zwolle, 2005), no. 12.
4. See, for example, Mary Frances Durantini, The Child in Seventeenth-Century DutchPainting (Ann Arbor, 1983).
5. Sturla J. Gudlaugsson, Katalog der Gemälde Gerard ter Borchs sowie biographischesMaterial,2vols.

(TheHague,1959–60),2:108;

Otto

Naumann, Frans

vanMieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 1:66; Marjorie E. Wieseman inArthur K. Wheelock Jr., ed., Gerard ter Borch (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Galleryof Art; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Zwolle, 2004), 88.
6. Mary Frances Durantini, The Child in Seventeenth Century Dutch Painting (Ann Arbor,1983), 94.
7. Fortheprint,

partofaseriesofseven,

see

Otto

Naumann, Frans

vanMieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 1:66 and fig. 81.
8. Bettina Werche, “Frans van Mieris D. Ä.,” in Leslust: Niederländische Malerei vonRembrandt bis Vermeer, ed. Sabine Schulze (Exh. cat. Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle)(Frankfurt, 1993), 252; Marjorie E. Wieseman in Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., ed., Gerard terBorch (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum)(Zwolle, 2004), 88. See also Mary Frances Durantini, The Child in Seventeenth Century
Dutch Painting (Ann Arbor, 1983), fig. 47.
9. Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder , 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 1:66 n.
11, 2:61.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Child’s Lesson (Hannah Entrusting Her Son Samuel into the Care ofthe High Priest Eli?)Page 6 of 9

10. Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 2: no.
85; Peter van der Ploeg in Quentin Buvelot, ed., Frans van Mieris 1635–1681 (Exh. cat. TheHague, Mauritshuis; Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) (Zwolle, 2005), no. 43.
11. See the list in Andor Pigler, Barockthemen: Eine Auswahl von Verzeichnissen zur
Ikonographie des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts , 2 vols. (Budapest, 1974), 1:134–35; see also
Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 2: 61.

Provenance
Probably Adam Gottlob, Count Moltke, Copenhagen; by inheritance to Frederik Christian
Moltke van Bregentved, Copenhagen, until 1931 (Moltke sale, V. Winkel & Magnussen,Copenhagen, 1 June 1931, no. 86).1[1][Frank T. Sabin, London, 1934].
Abraham Bronkhorst (1886–1944), The Hague, 1935.
[D. Katz, Dieren and Nijmegen, 1935–36].
[S. Nijstad, The Hague].
Mr. & Mrs. Lloyd H. Smith, 1969–2000 (their sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 25 May 2000, no.
47 [Johnny van Haeften Ltd., London, 2002–4]).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2004.

Provenance Notes

1. A seal on the back of the panel still attests to this prestigious provenance. For the Moltke
Collection, see Ben Broos, Intimacies and Intrigues: History Paintings in the Mauritshuis ,The Hague, 1993, 98–99, with numerous references. The number “86” on the back of thepanel refers to the 1931 sale of the Moltke Collection in Copenhagen, see Provenance.
Portrait of a Fifty-Two-Year Old Man (FM-104) also comes from the Moltke Collection.

Exhibition History
London, Frank T. Sabin, “Autumn Exhibition: Dutch and Flemish 17th-Century Paintings,”© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Child’s Lesson (Hannah Entrusting Her Son Samuel into the Care of
the High Priest Eli?)Page 7 of 9October 1934, no. 8.
Rotterdam, Rotterdamse Kunstkring, “Tentoonstelling van schilderijen door OudHollandsche en Vlaamsche meesters waaronder beroemde meesterwerken als Rembrandt,
Frans Hals, Jan Steen enz. enz. uit de collectie der Fa. D. Katz te Dieren,” 16 November–15
December 1935, no. 41 [lent by Abraham Bronkhorst].
The Hague, Gemeentemuseum, “Oude Kunst uit Haagsche Bezit,” 12 December 1936–31
January 1937, no. 123.
Almelo, De Waag, “Oude Kunst uit Twents Particulier Bezit,” 31 October–30 November
1953, no. 27.
Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle, “Leselust: Niederländische Malerei von Rembrandt bisVermeer,” 24 September 1993–2 January 1994, no. 58.
London, Johnny van Haeften Ltd., “Dutch and Flemish Old Master Paintings,” 2002, no. 18.
The Hague, Mauritshuis, “Frans van Mieris 1635–1681: Painted Perfection,” 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].
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, on loan with the permanent collection, January
2010–February 2012; February 2014–February 2016 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The
Leiden 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].

References
Catalogue des tableaux de la collection du comte de Moltke . Copenhagen, 1885, 26, no.
45.
Champlin, John Denison and Perkins, Charles C., eds. Cyclopedia of Painters andPaintings. 3 vols. New York, 1887, 3:265.
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke derhervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts . 10 vols. Esslingen andParis, 1907–28, 10:24, no. 83.
Gudlaugsson, Sturla J. Katalog der Gemälde Gerard ter Borchs sowie biographischesMaterial. 2 vols. The Hague, 1959–60, 1:257, 2: 08.
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Child’s Lesson (Hannah Entrusting Her Son Samuel into the Care of
the High Priest Eli?)Page 8 of 9Plietzsch, Eduard. Holländische und flämische Maler des 17. Jahrhunderts . Leipzig, 1960,53.
Naumann, Otto. Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder . 2 vols. Doornspijk, 1981, 1:66 andnn. 10 and 11, 2:60–61, no. 50.
Werche, Bettina. “Frans van Mieris D. Ä.” In Leslust: Niederländische Malerei vonRembrandt bis Vermeer. Edited by Sabine Schulze. Exh. cat. Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle.
Frankfurt, 1993, 252–53, no. 58.
Hale, Meredith. “The Child’s Lesson.” In Dutch and Flemish Old Master Paintings. Salescat. Johnny van Haeften, Ltd. London, 2002, no. 18.
Wieseman, Marjorie E. “The Reading Lesson.” In Gerard ter Borch. Edited by Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum.
Zwolle, 2004, 88, 201 n. 5.
Van der Mark, Bieke. “The Child’s Lesson.” In Frans van Mieris 1635–1681. Edited byQuentin Buvelot. Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis; Washington D.C., National Gallery ofArt. Zwolle, 2005, 104–6, no. 12.
Buvelot, Quentin. Frans van Mieris 1635–1681. Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis;
Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art. Zwolle, 2005, 225, no. 12, 234, no. 50.

VersionsVersions and Copies
Formerly Emile Wolf, New York, oil on panel, 27 x 22.2 cm; Otto Naumann,Frans van Mieris(1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 2:61, no. 50a.

Versions Notes

Technical Summary
The support, a single plank of vertically grained, rectangular wedge-shaped oak with an arched
upper edge, has bevels along all four sides and a shim glued to the lower edge.[1] The panel isunthinned and uncradled and appears to have been trimmed slightly along the left vertical edge.
Along the panel reverse there is one red wax collection seal, two old paper labels, and a© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Child’s Lesson (Hannah Entrusting Her Son Samuel into the Care ofthe High Priest Eli?)Page 9 of 9

numerical inscription but no import stamps, panel maker’s mark or machine tool marks.
A white-colored ground was applied followed by a brown transparent underlayer used as a midtone, particularly through the man’s and boy’s faces, jackets, and hair and shadows of thewoman’s blue skirt. Infrared images captured at 1700 nanometers reveal a loose and fluid sketchroughly outlining forms and defining silhouettes, and along the female figure’s proper left hand.
The image was constructed in paint applied in thin layers of opaque underpaint along the blueskirt and final thin transparent glazing, depending on the intended effect. There appear to beartist’s fingerprints along the man’s beard and boy’s hair.
The painting is signed in light-colored paint along the lower left corner but is undated. The “F”
appears slightly cropped, suggesting the left panel edge was trimmed slightly.
No compositional changes are evident in the infrared images or X-radiograph.
The painting was cleaned and restored in 2009 and remains in a good state of preservation
despite areas of thinness through the man’s and boy’s jackets.[2]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 fordendrochronology. The upper arched edge could be examined, but it would be preferable if
the lower shim could be removed.
2. Entry based on 2011 examination report by Kate Smith, paintings conservator, Museum ofFine Arts, Boston.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection