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Portrait of a Fifty-Two Year Old Man
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Portrait of a Fifty-Two Year Old Man
Frans van Mieris(Leiden 1635 – 1681 Leiden)

1665
oil on panel
19.2 x 15 cm
signed and dated, upper left corner, oversculptural niche: “AET. 52. (AE in ligature) /F. van Mieris / 1665.”
FM-104

How to cite
Buvelot, Quentin. “Portrait of a Fifty-Two Year Old Man” (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-fiftytwo-year-old-man/ (archived May 2020).
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.

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The refined paintings that Frans van Mieris produced with saintly patience

Comparative Figures

made him renowned during his lifetime both in his own country and abroad.
Like Gerrit Dou (1613–75), he was among the best-paid painters of theGolden Age. From the voluminous book of inventories of the estates ofpeople living on Rapenburg in Leiden, it can be inferred that Van Mieris’spaintings

werecontemporaries.

[1]

alwaysmore

highlyvalued

thanthoseby

his

These inventories also provide a unique picture of thevaried social status, financial position and religious background of some ofhis buyers, as well as the composition and size of their collections. Van
Mieris built a devoted clientele in Leiden that included Franciscus de le BoëSylvius (1614–72), an internationally famous professor of chemistry andmedicine whom Houbraken described as Van Mieris’s patron.[2] The 1673
inventory of Sylvius’s estate—his house at Rapenburg 31 still stands
today—indicates that he possessed seven works by Van Mieris and an
astonishing eleven by Dou.[3] Houbraken states explicitly that Sylvius gave
Van Mieris regular commissions and had the first right of purchase of hisFig 1. Frans van Mieris the Elder,
Double Portrait of Franciscus de leBoë Sylvius and His Wife, known
as “The Music Lesson,” 1672,
panel with arched top, 41 x 31 cm,
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen,Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister,Dresden, 1743

works for a fixed fee.[4]Among the works by Van Mieris described in the inventory of Sylvius’s
estate was a painting of “the deceased with his second wife by Van
Mieris.”[5] Without doubt, the overly labored double portrait of a couple of1672 in Dresden is the painting described in the inventory, which was drawn
up only a year after the completion of the painting (fig 1).[6] This hypothesis
was first proposed by Otto Naumann, who noticed that the face of the man,with his wide, flat and square chin, is identical to that in the engraving ofSylvius that Cornelis van Dalen (1638–64) made in 1659 (fig 2).[7] The
convincing likeness is confirmed by a description of the painting in the 1678
inventory of Sylvius’s nephew Jean Rouyer: “The portrait of Professor
Sylvius and his wife playing the lute.”[8]The genre-like portrait is in effect an“in memoriam” painting for Sylvius’s second wife, Margareta Lucretia
Schlezer, who died before it was finished. The lute is a well-known reference

Fig 2. Cornelis van Dalen, Portraitof Franciscus de le Boë Sylvius,1659, engraving (fourth state), 306
x 238 mm, British Museum,London, 1864,0714.17, © Trusteesof the British Museum

to the harmony of love.[9] The professor is known to have owned at least six
portraits of himself, painted, drawn, and engraved, including the 1659
print.[10]Naumann has tentatively proposed that the present painting, fully signed anddated 1665, also represents Sylvius; however, this identification cannot besupported.[11] The inscription in the upper left corner of the present painting,“Aetatis 52,” which is repeated on the back of the panel, clearly gives theage of the sitter as fifty-two, but Sylvius would not reach that age until 15© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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March 1666.[12] Moreover, the sitter does not resemble the man portrayed in
Van Dalen’s 1659 engraving.[13] Although the moustache and goatee arecomparable, his face is narrower and his hair is less curly. Finally, theinventory of Sylvius’s estate lists all the paintings in his collection, including
the family portraits, but this work is not among them.[14]The sitter’s rich black cloak, which typifies the man as a well-to-do burgher
from Leiden, is brilliantly rendered, much to the liking of contemporary
viewers (for more on this subject, see FM-110.a and FM-110.b). In its
depiction of such vestments, the portrait is akin to Portrait of a Man of 1663
(Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence) and Portrait of Florentius Schuyl of 1666
(Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague).[15] The simplicity andbalance of the present painting is striking, as Van Mieris’s portraits of malesitters are usually somewhat labored. The backdrop of architecture with aclassical ambience and a cloudy sky that Van Mieris introduced in this workadds to the sitter’s grandeur. In a similar manner, Van Mieris modeled theman’s elegant gesture on the portrait idiom of the Flemish painter Anthonyvan Dyck (1559–1641), whose famous series of portraits, the Iconographie,
had been engraved in 1645.[16]- Quentin Buvelot, 2017

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Portrait of a Fifty-Two Year Old ManPage 5 of 9Endnotes

1. See Cornelia Willemijn Fock, in Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht, ed.
Theodoor Hermann Lunsingh Scheurleer, Cornelia Willemijn Fock, and A.J. van Dissel, 6vols. (Leiden, 1986–92), 5a:17.
2. Arnold

Houbraken,

Degrooteschouburgh

derNederlantsche

konstschilders

enschilderessen, 3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1718–21; revised edition published in The Hague, 1753;
reprinted in Amsterdam, 1980), 3: 3; For Sylvius’s life, see the references in Otto
Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 1: 25 n. 23,137 n. 247.
3. For the inventory, see Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols.
(Doornspijk, 1981), 1: 175; Theodoor Hermann Lunsingh Scheurleer, Cornelia Willemijn Fock,and A.J. van Dissel, eds., Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht, 6 vols.
(Leiden, 1986–92), 1: 31–32, 3a: 278–95, 335–42, 5a: 10, 25. For a detailed discussion of thecollection, see Eric Jan Sluijter, “‘All striving to adorne their houses with costly peeces’: TwoCase Studies of Paintings in Wealthy Interiors,” in Art & Home: Dutch Interiors in the Age ofRembrandt, ed. Mariët Westermann (Exh. cat. Newark Museum; Denver, Denver ArtMuseum) (Zwolle, 2001), 105–16; cf. also Pamela H. Smith, “Science and Taste: Painting,Passions, and the New Philosophy in Seventeenth-Century Leiden,” Isis 90 (1999): 421–61.
4. See also Theodoor Hermann Lunsingh Scheurleer, Cornelia Willemijn Fock, and A.J. vanDissel, eds., Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht, 6 vols. (Leiden, 1986–92),
5a: 10; Eric Jan Sluijter, “‘All striving to adorne their houses with costly peeces’: Two Case
Studies of Paintings in Wealthy Interiors,” in Art & Home: Dutch Interiors in the Age ofRembrandt, ed. Mariët Westermann (Exh. cat. Newark Museum; Denver, Denver ArtMuseum) (Zwolle, 2001), 110, 229 n. 34.
5. “Den overleden[en] met sijn laetste huysvr[ouw] van Mi[e]ris.” Quoted from Theodoor
Hermann Lunsingh Scheurleer, Cornelia Willemijn Fock, and A.J. van Dissel, eds., Het
Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht, 6 vols. (Leiden, 1986–92), 3a:337. SeeOtto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 2:101;
Eirc Jan Sluijter, “‘All striving to adorne their houses with costly peeces’: Two Case Studies
of Paintings in Wealthy Interiors,” in Art & Home: Dutch Interiors in the Age of Rembrandt, ed.
Mariët Westermann (Exh. cat. Newark Museum; Denver, Denver Art Museum) (Zwolle, 2001),
107, 110, 113 (and fig. 141), 228 n. 27.
6. Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 1:80, 83(and n. 23), 138, 140, 2:101, no. 89; Theodoor Hermann Lunsingh Scheurleer, Cornelia
Willemijn Fock, and A.J. van Dissel, eds., Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse
gracht, 6 vols. and index (Leiden, 1986–92), 3a: 290, 291, 292 (fig. 5); Rudi Ekkart, “Leidse© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Fifty-Two Year Old ManPage 6 of 9

Burgers in Beeld: Portrettisten in Leiden van de late zestiende tot de vroege achttiende
eeuw,” in ibid., 6a: 24, 38 n. 109; Eric Jan Sluijter “All striving to adorne their houses withcostly peeces’: Two Case Studies of Paintings in Wealthy Interiors,” in Art & Home: Dutch
Interiors in the Age of Rembrandt, ed. Mariët Westermann (Exh. cat. Newark Museum;Denver, Denver Art Museum) (Zwolle, 2001), 107, 110, 113 and fig. 141, 196, no. 85, 228 n.
27; Quentin Buvelot, ed., Frans van Mieris 1635–1681 (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis;
Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) (New Haven, 2005), 18, fig. 7, 236, no. 89.
7. Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 1: 138and fig. 10.
8. Eric Jan Sluijter, “‘All striving to adorne their houses with costly peeces’: Two Case Studies
of Paintings in Wealthy Interiors,” in Art & Home: Dutch Interiors in the Age of Rembrandt, ed.
Mariët Westermann (Exh. cat. Newark Museum; Denver Art Museum) (Zwolle, 2001), 228 n.
27.
9. Eddy de Jongh, Portretten van echt en trouw: Huwelijk en gezin in de nederlandse kunst vande zeventiende eeuw (Exh. cat. Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum) (Zwolle 1986), 40–45.
10. Eric Jan Sluijter, “‘All striving to adorne their houses with costly peeces’: Two Case Studiesof Paintings in Wealthy Interiors,” in Art & Home: Dutch Interiors in the Age of Rembrandt, ed.
Mariët Westermann (Exh. cat. Newark Museum; Denver Art Museum) (Zwolle, 2001), 113.
11. Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 1:70,138, 2:78–79, no. 62.
12. Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 1:138,
mistakenly writes that in 1665 Sylvius “would have passed from fifty-two to fifty-three years ofage.”
13. Eric Jan Sluijter, “‘All striving to adorne their houses with costly peeces’: Two Case Studies
of Paintings in Wealthy Interiors,” in Art & Home: Dutch Interiors in the Age of Rembrandt, ed.
Mariët Westermann (Exh. cat. Newark Museum; Denver, Denver Art Museum) (Zwolle, 2001),
228 n. 27, even writes: “In my opinion, the other portrait that Naumann thinks might be
Sylvius definitely represents a different face.”
14. As already pointed out by Rudi Ekkart, “Leidse Burgers in Beeld: Portrettisten in Leiden vande late zestiende tot de vroege achttiende eeuw,” in Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van eenLeidse gracht, ed. Theodoor Hermann Lunsingh Scheurleer, Cornelia Willemijn Fock, andA.J. van Dissel, 6 vols. (Leiden, 1986–92), 6a: 25. The inventory is fully listed in Otto
Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 1:175. A
portrait of Sylvius by Van Mieris listed by Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonnéof the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on theWork of John Smith, ed. and trans. Edward G. Hawke, 8 vols. (London, 1907–28); originallypublished as Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, 10 vols. (Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28), 10:70-71, no. 261, was larger and only bore the monogram of the artist (see Otto Naumann,Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. [Doornspijk, 1981], 2:79; Theodoor Hermann
Lunsingh Scheurleer, Cornelia Willemijn Fock, and A.J. van Dissel, eds., Het Rapenburg:
Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht, 6 vols. [Leiden, 1986–92], 3a: 291, 353 n. 102).
15. For the painting in Florence, see Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 2: no. 57; Quentin Buvelot, ed., Frans van Mieris 1635–1681 (Exh.
cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis; Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) (New Haven, 2005),
235, no. 57; for the painting in The Hague, see Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681)
the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 2: no. 63; Quentin Buvelot, ed., Frans van Mieris1635–1681 (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis; Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art)
(New Haven, 2005), no. 37. Schuyl was a Leiden professor who commissioned only one workfrom Van Mieris, after having obtained his doctorate two years earlier under the supervision ofSylvius, who probably introduced the two men.
16. Marie Mauquoy-Hendrickx, L’iconographie d’Antoine van Dyck, 2 vols. (Brussels, 1991); Ger
Luijten in Carl Depauw, Ger Luijten, et al., Antoon van Dyck en de prentkunst (Exh. cat.
Antwerp, Museum Plantin-Moretus; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Antwerp, 1999), 73–91.

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. 85).
(Sale, Stockholm, Bukowski, 27 April 1955, no. 177).
(Sale, Paris, Drouot, Rieunier & Bailly-Pommery, 24 March 1999, no. 19, not sold; Paris,Drouot, Rieunier & Associés, 2 December 2002, no. 58 [Otto Naumann Ltd., New York,2003].
From whom acquired by the present owner.

References
Catalogue des tableaux de la collection du comte de Moltke. Copenhagen, 1885, 25, no. 44.
Champlin, John Denison, and Charles C. Perkins, eds.

Cyclopedia of Painters andPaintings. 3 vols. New York, 1887, 3:265.
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Fifty-Two Year Old Man
Page 8 of 9Von Wurzbach, Alfred. Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon: Auf Grund ArchivalischerForschungen Bearbeitet. 3 vols. Vienna and Liepzig, 1906–11, 2:165.
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. 8 vols. London, 1907–28, 10:77, no. 287. 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, 1:70,138, 2:78–79, no. 62.
Lunsingh Scheurleer, Theodoor Hermann, C. Willemijn Fock, A. J. van Dissel. Het
Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht. 6 vols. Leiden, 1986–92, 3a: 291, 292, fig.
6, 353 n. 102.
Ekkart, Rudolf E.O. “Leidse Burgers in Beeld: Portrettisten in Leiden van de late zestiende
tot de vroege achttiende eeuw.” In Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht.
Edited by Theodoor Herman Lunsingh Scheurleer, Cornelia Willemijn Fock, and A.J. vanDissel. 6a:24–25. 6 vols. Leiden, 1986–92.
Sluijter, Eric Jan.“‘All striving to adorne their houses with costly peeces’: Two Case Studiesof Paintings in Wealthy Onteriors.” In Art & Home: Dutch Interiors in the Age of Rembrandt.
Edited by Mariët Westermann, 102–27, 228 no. 27. Exh. cat. Newark, Newark Museum;
Denver, Denver Art Museum. Zwolle, 2001.
Buvelot, Quentin, Otto Naumann, and Eddy de Jongh. Frans van Mieris 1635–1681. Editedby Quentin Buvelot, 40, fig. 22, 41, 235, no. 62. Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis;
Washington, National Gallery of Art. Zwolle, 2005.

Technical Summary
The support, a single plank of vertically grained, rectangular-shaped oak, has bevels and woodshims adhered with brads along all four sides.[1] The unthinned and uncradled panel has machine
tool marks along the left side of the reverse but no wax collection seals, import stamps, labels orpanel maker’s marks.
A light-colored ground is followed by a dark underlayer. The image was constructed with thinlayers of transparent glazing through the background and somewhat thicker paint along thefigure’s black cape, white collar, cuff, and proper right hand.
The painting is signed and dated in dark paint over the arched niche in the upper left corner. Theupper edge of the AE written in ligature is cropped, which suggests the upper panel edge has
been trimmed slightly.
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No underdrawing or compositional changes are readily apparent in infrared images captured at
780–1000 nanometers or in the X-radiograph.
The painting was cleaned and restored in 2003 and remains in a good state of preservation.

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 for
dendrochronology but would require removal of either the upper or the lower shim.

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