VP4585
FRANS VAN MIERIS the Elder
(1635 – Leiden – 1681)
A Self-portrait of the Artist, bust-length, wearing a Turban crowned
with a Feather, and a fur-trimmed Robe
On panel, oval, 4½ x 3½ ins. (11 x 8.2 cm)
PROVENANCE
Jan van Beuningen, Amsterdam
From whom purchased by Pieter de la Court van der Voort (1664-1739), Amsterdam, before
1731, for 120 Florins (“door myn vaader gekofft van Jan van Beuningen tot Amsterdam”)
In Pieter de la Court van der Voort’s inventory of 1731
His son Allard de la Court van der Voort, and in his inventories of 1739 and 1749
His widow, Catherine de la Court van de Voort-Backer
Her deceased sale, Leiden, Sam. and Joh. Luchtmans, 8 September 1766, lot 23, for 470
Florins to De Winter
Gottfried Winkler, Leipzig, by 1768
Probably anonymous sale, “Twee voornamen Liefhebbers” (two distinguished amateurs),
Leiden, Delfos, 26 August 1788, lot 85, (as on copper), sold for f. 65.5 to Van de Vinne
M. Duval, St. Petersburg (?) and Geneva, by 1812
His sale, London, Phillips, 12 May 1846, lot 42 (as a self-portrait of the artist), sold for £525
Anonymous sale, London, Christie’s, 21 February 1903, lot 80, (as a self-portrait of the artist)
Max and Fanny Steinthal, Charlottenburg, Berlin, by 1909, probably acquired in 1903
Thence by descent to the previous owner, Private Collection Belgium, 2012
EXHIBITED
Berlin, Köningliche Kunstakademie, Illustrierter Katalog der Ausstellung von Bildnissen des
fünfzehnten bis achtzehnten Jahrhunderts aus dem Privatbesitz der Mitglieder des Vereins,
31 March – 30 April 1909, cat. no. 84, as “Brustbild eines mannes mit Turban” (lent by
Steinthal)
LITERATURE
Possibly mentioned by Z. C. Uffenbach, Merkwürdige Reisen durch Niedersachsen, Holland
und England, vol. III, Ulm 1754, p. 421 (when visiting the De la Court collection in 1711)
Historische Erklaerungen der gemaelde, welche Herr Gottfried Winkler in Leipzig gesammlet,
Leipzig 1768, cat. no. 432 (as dated 1667)
E. W. Moes, Iconographia Batava, vol. II, Amsterdam 1905, p. 103, no. 31
W. Kurth (advised by W. von Bode), Die Kunst im Hause Steinthal 1889-1914, privately
printed, Berlin, 1914
C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und Kritisches Verzeichnis …, vol. X, Esslingen 1928, pp.
64-5, no. 240
H. van Hall, Portretten van Nederlandse beeldende Kunstenaars, Amsterdam 1963, p. 211, no.
7 (as a self-portrait by the artist and dated 1667, from the Steinthal collection)
O. Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635-1681) The Elder, Doornspijk, 1981, vol. I, p. 207, no.
A.19, vol. 2, p. 84, cat. no. 70 (as dated 1667), and also probably cat. no. 70a
C. V. Fock, “Willem van Mieris en zijn mecenas Pieter de la Court van der Voort”, in Leids
Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, vol. II, 1983, p. 280, note 14
T. H. Lunsingh Scheurleer, C. W. Fock, A. J. van Dissel, Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een
Leidse gracht, 10 vols. and index, Leiden, 1986-1992, vol. 6a, p. 351, fig. 50
P. Hecht, De Hollandse fijnschilders: Van Gerard Dou tot Adriaen van der Werff, Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam, 1989-1990, p. 88, fig. 15a
Q. Buvelot, et. al., Frans van Mieris 1635-1681, exh. cat., Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis,
The Hague and National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2005-2006, under “List of Frans van
Mieris’s Paintings and Drawings”, p. 235, no. 70.
Engraved:
By Bause, when in the collection of Friedrich Winkler
By Klauber after a drawing by Michaeloff, 1812, when in the Duval collection
NARRATIVE
Next to Gerrit Dou, Frans van Mieris the Elder was the most talented and successful of the
Leiden fijnschilders. Van Mieris studied with Dou who purportedly called him “the Prince of
his pupils”. His oeuvre consists mainly of small scenes from everyday life, in addition to
which he painted portraits and a few history subjects. In his lifetime van Mieris enjoyed fame
at home and abroad and was among the best-paid painters of the Dutch Golden Age.
Frans van Mieris portrayed himself and his wife Cunera van der Cock many times, not only in
separate portraits and tronies, but also cast as characters in his genre pieces. If one includes
this last category, the familiar features of the artist and his wife can be counted in no less
than a quarter of his painted oeuvre, which numbers some 120 paintings. Indeed, in his
production of self-images, he is second only to Rembrandt in seventeenth-century Hollandi.
In van Mieris’s day a distinction was made between conventional portraits (conterfeytsels)
and tronies. The term tronie was used to refer to a study of a head or bust of an individual,
seen as representative of a particular type or character, often dressed in the appropriate
costume: tronies could also exemplify different facial expressions or emotions. Although such
studies were generally taken from live models, often including the artist himself, the sitter’s
identity was not its primary purpose. They were nevertheless regarded as works of
independent standing. Gerrit Dou produced some tronies of this kind as, of course, did his
own teacher Rembrandt, who popularised the genre in numerous prints and paintings in the
second quarter of the seventeenth century. In tronies painted at different stages of his
career, van Mieris portrayed himself in a variety of roles and fanciful disguises, with facial
expressions that range from broadly smiling, to frowning and even grimacing. By contrast, in
his official self-portraits, he depicted himself with a serious demeanour, dressed in the garb of
a gentleman.
In this tronie-like self-portrait van Mieris presents himself as a man in oriental costume.
Despite his unshaven and moustachioed visage, his distinctive features are easily
recognisable. We see him from close quarters, his head turned slightly away and his eyes
trained on something beyond the picture plane. Over a white shirt gathered into the neck
and a jerkin with slashings across the chest, he wears a fur-trimmed cloak. On his head is a
red velvet beret, surmounted by an ostrich feather: wound about his forehead and tied at the
back, is a multi-coloured striped scarf. A pearl earring hangs from one ear. The level of detail
is astonishing when one recalls that this tiny painting can be held easily in one hand. Indeed,
its intimate size is in itself an invitation for us to examine it closely and take delight in the
meticulous execution and virtuoso rendering of materials, from the fur of his gown, to the
fine velour of his beret and the downy barbs of the feather. Also wonderful to see is the
subtle play of light and shade that models and gives definition to the folds of his fine linen
shirt, the contours of his face, the puckered brow, ample chin, etc., yet with scarcely any
evidence of his brushstrokes.
When Cosimo de’ Medici (1642-1723), later Grand Duke of Tuscany, made a tour of the
Netherlands in 1667, he visited fifteen artists in their studios. Of the painters mentioned in
his travel journal, he styled three of them “famoso”: Rembrandt, Gerrit Dou and Frans van
Mieris the Elderii. As Naumanniii, van de Weteringiv and others have observed, the fact that
these three painters produced an unusually large number of self-portraits is surely directly
associated with their fame. There was evidently a certain cachet attached to such images of
famous painters, which made them especially desirable to sophisticated collectors. This was
no doubt the reason why Rembrandt produced so many likenesses of himself and van Mieris
himself it seems was not averse to exploiting this particular niche in the market. We know
that on a visit to van Mieris’s studio, Cosimo de’ Medici admired a small self-portrait of the
artist, but when his agent later expressed an interest in buying it, he found that it was no
longer available. Subsequently, the Grand Duke commissioned two self-portraits from the
artist to add to his celebrated collection of artists’ self-portraits in Florencev.
It thus becomes clear that the traditional distinction between self-portraits and tronies is
often somewhat blurred in van Mieris’s oeuvre. This painting and others of a similar type
could indeed be characterised as a tronie, but they could simultaneously function as a
portrait, since the sitter’s identity would have been readily recognisable to a wide audience.
Indeed, it is the dual function of these images that partly explains their allure for the
contemporary connoisseur, for the purchaser of such a piece became the proud owner not
only of a likeness of a uomo famoso, but also of an autograph example of the very qualities
that gave rise to that fame.
The recent re-emergence of this long-lost painting is a welcome addition to the oeuvre of
Frans van Mieris the Elder. Although known to Naumann through earlier literature and
provenance, as well as from the reproductive engraving after it, made by Klauber when it was
in the Duval collection in 1812vi, it had not been seen in public since 1909. At that time, the
picture belonged to the German-Jewish banker Max Steinthal and his wife Fanny. Steinthal, a
co-founder of the Deutsche Bank, is perhaps best remembered today for his role in organising
the financing of Berlin’s elevated metropolitan railway, which opened in 1902. Together he
and Fanny built up a collection of art that included many Dutch and Flemish paintings, which
they housed in their villa in Charlottenburg, Berlin. After the Nazis seized power, Steinthal
was forced to resign from the Board of the Deutsche Bank and the family home and much of
the art collection were appropriated by the Nazi authorities. As a result, he and Fanny lived
out their days, homeless and penniless, in a Berlin hotel. After the war some of the collection
was returned to the family, only to be confiscated again by the DDR authorities. In the last
decade some parts of the collection were eventually restituted and highlights were exhibited
in the Jewish Museum in Berlin in 2004, in an exhibition entitled Max Steinthal: Ein Bankier
und Seine Bilder. The present picture and two others from the collection avoided seizure by
the Nazis and were kept in the family, having been removed from Berlin by Max and Fanny’s
daughter Eva Steinthal, first to England and then to Belgium.
The early history of this picture is also noteworthy. Although we do not know the name of
the picture’s first owner, by 1731 it was in the possession of Pieter de la Court van der Voort
(1664-1739). An immensely wealthy textile merchant, de la Court had settled in Leiden in
1686 and subsequently became one of the most important patrons of Frans’s son Willem van
Mieris. He amassed a stupendous art collection, which included no less than fifteen paintings
by Willem van Mieris, as well as many other works by Leiden fijnschilders. In the 1649
inventory of Pieter’s son Allard de la Court, written in his own hand, the present painting is
described as a “Head-study so wonderfully beautiful and artistic, so magically painted by
Frans van Mieris the Elder as ever has been seen by him”. It is also stated that the picture
was acquired by his father from Jan van Beuningen for 120 florins. This may have been the
banker and merchant Jan van Beuningen (1667-1720), who lived on the Herengracht in
Amsterdam, but who died in Curaçao where he was Governor.
Frans van Mieris was born in Leiden on 16 April 1635, the son of the goldsmith Jan van Mieris
(1585/86-1650). The young van Mieris was initially apprenticed as a goldsmith, but by 1650
he had become a pupil of Abraham van Toorenvliet (c. 1620-1692), a successful glass painter
and drawing master in Leiden. After a brief period with van Toorenvliet, van Mieris began an
apprenticeship with the famous Leiden fijnschilder Gerrit Dou (1613-1675), who referred to
him as “the prince of his pupils”. He studied next with Abraham van den Tempel (1622/231672), a Leiden history and portrait painter, and finally returned to Dou’s studio for the
remainder of his training. In 1657 he married Cunera van der Cock (1629/30-1700), who bore
him five children. On 14 May 1658, van Mieris enrolled in the Leiden Guild of St. Luke, in
which he was to serve as headman in 1663 and 1664 and as dean in 1665.
Van Mieris seems to have spent his entire life in Leiden and was patronised by a number of
the city’s wealthiest and most prominent citizens. He also received commissions from Cosimo
III de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm. The latter invited
him to take up the position of court painter in Vienna, an offer van Meiris declined. Despite
his great success, during the last decades of his life he was constantly in debt. The records
also substantiate Houbraken’s claim that the artist was a heavy drinker. Perhaps as a result
of his over-indulgence he died prematurely at the age of forty-five and was buried on 12
March 1681 in the Pieterskerk in Leiden. His pupils include Carel de Moor (1656-1738) and
his sons Willem (1662-1747) and Jan (1660-1690). His grandson Frans van Mieris the Younger
(1680-1763) perpetuated his style well into the eighteenth century.
P.M.
i
O. Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635-1681) The Elder, Doornspijk, 1981, vol. I, p. 126.
Ernst van de Wetering, “The Multiple Functions of Rembrandt’s Self Portraits” in Rembrandt by himself, exh.
cat., Rembrandt by Himself, National Gallery, London & Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis, The Hague,
1999, p. 28, notes 63 & 64.
iii
O. Naumann, op. cit, vol. I, p. 126.
iv
E. van de Wetering, op. cit., p. 28.
v
O. Naumann, op. cit., vol. II, p. 117, nos. 110 & 111.
vi
Engraved by Ignaz Sebastian Klauber after Frans van Mieris, 1812.
ii