© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Courtesan Counting Money
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Courtesan Counting Money
Jan van Mieris(Leiden 1660 – 1690 Rome)ca. 1680
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

How to cite
Aono, Junko. “Courtesan Counting Money” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed. Edited byArthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/a-courtesan-countingmoney/ (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 narrative
occurs.

“A lady counting money, with a jolly old woman, by Jan van Mieris” was theComparative Figures

brief description given for this picture when it appeared in the 1707 sale of
the Amsterdam collector Petronella de la Court.[1] Behind a partially drawn
red curtain partly obscuring a purse, a young woman puts a coin on the table
as she gazes seductively at the viewer. The old woman standing behind hersmiles as she looks approvingly at the young woman’s action. Taking into
account several motifs—the young woman’s low décolleté, a canopied bed,
and a man who is about to leave the room—the scene clearly takes place in abrothel where the young courtesan and her procuress happily divide theirprofits.[2]Thematically as well as stylistically, the work is characteristic of genre
pictures that Jan van Mieris painted around 1680 when he was training withhis renowned father, Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635–81).[3] These genreFig 1. Frans van Mieris, Woman
with a Lapdog, Accompanied by aMaidservant (probably Bathshebawith King David’s Letter), FM-105

paintings, which feature highly finished and enamel-like surfaces, a© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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meticulous rendering of the texture of fabrics, and the cool, smooth surfacesof a woman’s skin, demonstrate how much Jan was indebted to his father
for his subjects, figure types and painterly technique.[4]Jan van Mieris’s source of inspiration for Courtesan Counting Money comesfrom his father’s Woman with a Lapdog, Accompanied by a Maidservant of1680 (FM-105), which probably depicts Bathsheba after the wizened oldwoman has delivered David’s letter to her (fig 1).[5] The similarity in figure
types in the two pictures is striking, especially in their facial features andclothing. Jan van Mieris’s courtesan wears a similar dark green velvet jacket
with a plunging décolleté and a satin skirt that radiates 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 themoment of private confidence between the two women and alluded to thesuitor only through the motif of the letter on the table, Jan van Mieris strove
to clearly relate the course of events in the brothel. By adding pictorial
elements such as the bed, the man leaving the room, and the pearl necklace
on the table that must have been removed during the sexual transaction, VanMieris suggests a linear series of actions 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 thewoman’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 her money
seductively, inviting her next customer to enjoy her pleasures. Jan’s pictorialdevice and suggestive subject matter were apparently appreciated by thedistinguished art collector Petronella de la Court, who owned a number of hisworks and was likely the first owner of the present picture.[7] The painting’s
explicitly amorous message, however, was not evident to everyone. Thenotary G. Ypelaer, who compiled the inventory of Petronella’s estate in1707, described the picture as “een suynigh huyshouden” (a scene ofprudent housekeeping), which is probably the most chaste interpretation ofthe scene the artist could ever have expected.[8]- Junko Aono, 2017

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Courtesan Counting Money
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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 for thistheory 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 of works from theearly 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, 17th-Century
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 inLondon is one such an example. See: Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) theElder, 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 C. 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 Elder,© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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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 next note)
includes three paintings by Jan van Mieris, and her sale catalogue (see note 1) includes noless 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 PietBakker’s biography 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]).
Baron von Schönborn, Amsterdam (his sale, Amsterdam, 16 April 1738, no. 76 [for f. 42], as
attributed to Frans van Mieris).
(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.

References
Aono, Junko. Confronting the Golden Age: Imitation and Innovation in Dutch Genre Painting.
Amsterdam, 2015, 178, no. 3.

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 import stamps,© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Courtesan Counting Money
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A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied, and the paint applied in successive thinlayers 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 thispainting has previously been attributed alternately to Frans, Willem, and Jan van Mieris, the first
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.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection