Courtesan Counting Moneyca. 1680

Jan van Mieris(Leiden 1660 – 1690 Rome)oil on panel
28.4 x 22.6 cm
signed and indistinctly dated in light paint, upper
left corner: “J. van Mi….. Fecit. ..6.”
JM-101© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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How To Cite
Aono, Junko. "Courtesan Counting Money." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
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“A lady counting money, with a jolly old woman, by Jan van Mieris” wasComparative Figures

the brief description given for this picture when it appeared in the 1707
sale of the Amsterdam collector Petronella de la Court.[1] Behind a partiallydrawn red curtain partly obscuring a purse, a young woman puts a coin onthe table as she gazes seductively at the viewer. The old woman standing
behind her smiles as she looks approvingly at the young woman’s action.
Taking into account several motifs—the young woman’s low décolleté, acanopied bed, and a man who is about to leave the room—the scene
clearly takes place in a brothel where the young courtesan and her
procuress happily divide their profits.[2]Thematically as well as stylistically, the work is characteristic of genre
pictures that Jan van Mieris painted around 1680 when he was training

Fig 1. Frans van Mieris, Womanwith a Lapdog, Accompanied bya Maidservant (probablyBathsheba with King David’sLetter), FM-105

with his renowned father, Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635–81).[3] Thesegenre paintings, which feature highly finished and enamel-like surfaces, a
meticulous rendering of the texture of fabrics, and the cool, smoothsurfaces of a woman’s skin, demonstrate how much Jan was indebted tohis father for his subjects, figure types and painterly technique.[4]Jan van Mieris’s source of inspiration for Courtesan Counting Money
comes from his father’s Woman with a Lapdog, Accompanied by a
Maidservant of 1680 (FM-105), which probably depicts Bathsheba after
the wizened old woman has delivered David’s letter to her (fig 1).[5] The
similarity in figure types in the two pictures is striking, especially in theirfacial features and clothing. Jan van Mieris’s courtesan wears a similar
dark green velvet jacket with a plunging décolleté and a satin skirt thatradiates a silvery luster, while the procuress, with a double hood covering
her head, displays a comparably vulgar smile on her wrinkled face.[6] Jan
van Mieris, however, chose a different narrative structure. Whereas Frans
the Elder focused on the moment of private confidence between the two
women and alluded to the suitor only through the motif of the letter on thetable, Jan van Mieris strove to clearly relate the course of events in thebrothel. By adding pictorial elements such as the bed, the man leaving theroom, and the pearl necklace on the table that must have been removed
during the sexual transaction, Van Mieris suggests a linear series ofactions leading up to the moment depicted.
One of the most striking differences between the two works is therelationship of the viewer to the scene. In Frans the Elder’s painting the© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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woman’s averted gaze as she listens attentively to the old crone excludes
the viewer from the privacy of the moment, whereas the courtesan in Jan
van Mieris’s painting stares directly out at the viewer. She counts hermoney seductively, inviting her next customer to enjoy her pleasures.
Jan’s pictorial device and suggestive subject matter were apparently
appreciated by the distinguished art collector Petronella de la Court, whoowned a number of his works and was likely the first owner of the present
picture.[7] The painting’s explicitly amorous message, however, was notevident to everyone. The notary G. Ypelaer, who compiled the inventory ofPetronella’s estate in 1707, described the picture as “een suynighhuyshouden” (a scene of prudent housekeeping), which is probably themost chaste interpretation of the scene the artist could ever haveexpected.[8]-Junko Aono© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Courtesan Counting Money
Page 5 of 7Endnotes
1. Sales cat. Petronella de la Court (1624–1707), Amsterdam, 19 October 1707, no. 16 [for f.
190]: “Een geldtellend Juffertje, met een oud vrolyk Besje, van Jan Mieres.” Other pictures
by Jan van Mieris in the catalogue are: nos. 4, 17, 79, 80, 96–98.
2. The peculiar gesture of the old woman, clasping her upper arm with her left hand, perhaps
carried a sexual connotation in those days. For examples of the similar gesture, see, forinstance, Tavern Scene with a Drunken Man , by Cornelis Bega (private collection) in Petervan den Brink, ed., Cornelis Bega: Eleganz und raue Sitten (Exh. cat. Aachen, SuermondtLudwig-Museum; Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie) (Stuttgart, 2012),
180–83, no. 42.
3. Jan van Mieris became a member of the Leiden Guild of Saint Luke in 1686, but this does
not exclude the possibility that he produced signed pictures before that time. Evidence forthis theory may be found in A Woman and a Man in an Interior (see note 4), which is dated
1680. After his apprenticeship with his father, Jan probably started to paint his own
compositions while still active in his father’s studio and under his guidance. The handful ofworks from the early 1680s can be considered such examples.
4. See, for instance, Training the Little Dog, ca.1680 (sale, Charpentier, Paris, 6 April 1957,no. I), and A Woman and a Man in an Interior , dated 1680 (sale, Lepke, Berlin, 31 March
1925, no. 46). Also, for Lady at Her Dressing Table, ca. 1680, see James A. Welu, 17thCentury Dutch Painting: Raising the Curtain on New England Private Collections (Exh. cat.
Worcester Art Museum) (Worcester, Mass., 1983), 57–61, no. 15, as by Frans van Mieris
the Elder. Sometimes Jan’s quotation of motifs is so obvious that one could easily discern
which of his father’s pictures was his model. His Cavalier and a Lady from the Wallace
Collection in London is one such an example. See: Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris(1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 53–56, no. 45, fig. C45; John Ingamells,
The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of Pictures IV: Dutch and Flemish (London, 1992),
211–13, no. P176; Stephen Duffy and Jo Headly, The Wallace Collection’s Pictures: A
Complete Catalogue (London, 2004), 273, no. P176; Quentin Buvelot, ed.,Frans van Mieris
1635–1681 (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis; Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art)
(Zwolle, 2005), 234, no. 45.
5. Quentin Buvelot, ed., Frans van Mieris 1635–1681 (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis;
Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) (Zwolle, 2005), 239, no. 133; Peter Sutton, ed.,Love Letters: Dutch Genre Painting in the Age of Vermeer (Exh. cat. Greenwich, Conn.,
Bruce Museum; Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland) (London, 2003), 148–49, no. 26.
6. Frans van Mieris the Elder also portrayed this model as a procuress in his A Woman(Bathsheba?) with a Procuress; see Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 2:99–100, no. 87; Quentin Buvelot, ed.,Frans van Mieris
1635–1681 (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis; Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art)
(Zwolle, 2005), 236, no. 87.
7. Petronella de la Court’s close connection to Jan van Mieris is also supported by the fact that
she owned a group of early works he made during his short period of activity in Leiden
before his departure for Italy. The inventory of Petronella de la Court from 1707 (see nextnote) includes three paintings by Jan van Mieris, and her sale catalogue (see note 1)
includes no less than eight pictures by the painter.
8. Amsterdam City Archive, Notarial Archives, not. G. Ypelaer, inv. 5338, fol. 553-642, 16
August 1707, inventory of Petronella de la Court: for the inventory, see Piet Bakker’sbiography of Jan van Mieris in this catalogue.

ProvenancePetronella de la Court (1624–1707), Amsterdam (her sale, Amsterdam, 19 October 1707,no. 16 [for f. 190])(Sale, Drouot, Paris, 23 June 1983, no. 20, as attributed to Frans van Mieris).
(Sale, Christie’s, Paris, 24 June 2004, no. 30, as by Willem van Mieris).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2004.

Technical Summary
The support, asingle plank of vertically grained, rectangular-shaped oak, has bevels on all foursides.[1] The panel is unthinned and uncradledandhas machine tool marks along the reverse.
There is an import stamp, remnants of two labels, and handwritten numbers but no importstamps, stencils or panel maker’s mark.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied, and the paint applied in successive
thin layers of transparent glazing. The contours of the figure’s flesh tones, the folds of her green
velvet jacket and white satin skirt, the strand of pearls, and the red drapery resting on the table
stand are slightly raised. The painting is in good condition, though the brown background is thin
and allows the ground to show through. Minor compositional changes visible in infrared images
and as pentimenti include the figure’s proper right cheek, which was widened and depicted more
frontally, and alterations to her proper right forearm and pinky, and to the smile of the old woman
standing behind her.
The painting is signed and indistinctly dated in light paint along the upper left corner. Although© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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this painting has previously been attributed alternately to Frans, Willem, and Jan van Mieris, thefirst letter of the signature identifying the artist’s first name appears to be an “F” or a “J” that has
been struck through.
The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition in 2004 and remains
in a good state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on visual examination only.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection