April 16, 2011 <Back to Index>
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Frans van Mieris, the elder (April 16, 1635, Leiden – March 12, 1681, Leiden), was a Dutch Golden Age genre and portrait painter. The leading member of a Leiden family of painters, his sons Jan (1660 – 1690) and Willem (1662 – 1747) and his grandson Frans van Mieris the Younger (1689 – 1763) were also accomplished genre painters. Frans was the son of Jan Bastiaans van Mieris, a goldsmith, carver of rubies and diamond setter at Leiden. His father wished to train him to his own business, but Frans preferred drawing, and studied with Jacob Toorenvliet's father, Abraham Toorenvliet, a glazier who kept a school of design. From his own father's shop he became familiar with the ways and dress of people of distinction. His eye was fascinated in turn by the sheen of jewelry and stained glass; and, though he soon left Toorenvliet for the workshops of Gerard Dou and Abraham van den Tempel, he acquired the Leiden fijnschilder manner over the Amsterdam finish of the disciples of Rembrandt. It should be borne in mind that he seldom chose panels of which the size exceeded 12 to 15 inches, and whenever his name is attached to a picture above that size we may surely assign it to his son Willem or to some other imitator. Unlike Dou when he first left Rembrandt, or Jan Steen when he started on an independent career, Mieris never ventured to design figures as large as life. Characteristic of his art in its minute proportions is a shiny brightness and metallic polish.
The
subjects
which he treated best are those in which he illustrated the
habits or actions of the wealthier classes; but he sometimes succeeded
in homely incidents and in portrait, and not unfrequently he ventured on allegory. He repeatedly painted the
satin skirt which Ter
Borch brought into fashion, and he often rivalled Ter Borch in the
faithful rendering of rich and highly-coloured woven tissues. But he
remained below Ter Borch and Metsu,
because
he had not their delicate perception of harmony or their
charming mellowness of touch and tint, and he fell behind Gerard Dou,
because he was hard and had not his feeling for effect by concentrated
light and shade. In the form of his composition, which sometimes
represents the framework of a window enlivened with greenery, and
adorned with bas-reliefs within which figures are
seen to the waist, his model is certainly Dou. It
questionable whether Houbraken has accurately recorded this master's
birthday. One of his best-known pieces, a party of ladies and gentlemen
at an oyster luncheon, in the Hermitage
at
St Petersburg, bears the date of 1650. Celebrated alike for
composition and finish, it would prove that Mieris had reached his
prime at the age of fifteen. Another beautiful example, the "Doctor
Feeling a Lady's Pulse" in the gallery of Vienna,
is
dated 1656; and Waagen,
in
one of his critical essays, justly observes that it is a remarkable
production for a youth of twenty-one. In 1657 Mieris was married at
Leiden in the presence of Jan Potheuck, a painter, and this is the
earliest written record of his existence on which we can implicitly
rely. Of the numerous panels by Mieris, twenty-nine at least are
dated — the latest being an allegory, long in the Ruhl collection at
Cologne, illustrating what he considered the kindred vices of drinking,
smoking and dicing, in the year 1680. Mieris had numerous and
distinguished patrons. He received valuable commissions from Archduke
Leopold,
the elector-palatine, and Cosimo
III
de' Medici, grand-duke
of
Tuscany. His practice was large and lucrative, but never
engendered in him either carelessness or neglect. If there be a
difference between the painter's earlier and later work, it is that the
former was clearer and more delicate in flesh, whilst the latter was
often darker and more livid in the shadows. When he died his clients
naturally went over to his son Willem, who in turn bequeathed his
painting room to his son Frans. But neither Willem nor Frans
the younger equalled Frans the elder. The
pictures of all the generations of the Mieris family were successfully
imitated by A.D.
Snaphaan, who lived at Leipzig and was patronized by the
court of Anhalt-Dessau.
To
those who would study his deceptive form of art a visit to the
collection of Wörlitz near Dessau may afford instruction. |