Willem van Mieris
Van Mieris' style was that of the fijnschilders (painters in the "fine manner"), and his genre works, especially later in his career, depicted scenes from upper-class society.
Jan van Mieris (1660–1690) studied under his father Frans the Elder, as well as under Gerard de Lairesse (1641–1711), to eventually become a genre and portrait painter.
[1] Willem van Mieris, having been introduced to, and trained in, painting by his father, could not but be heavily influenced by the fijnschilders' ideas, ultimately becoming a member of the second generation of Leiden fine painters.
In fact, although he still focused on genre painting, his works usually depict scenes taken from the life of the upper class, and even when the protagonists belong to the low spheres of the society, they look much more elegant and refined than their real-life counterparts.
[1] This is mainly due to the influence exerted on Willem van Mieris by Gerard de Lairesse, whose Groot Schilderboek, published in 1707, marked the transition from the 17th to the 18th century in Dutch art.
In his extensive treatise, de Lairesse stated that the aim of genre painters should no longer be representing the human figure as it is (which was one of the pivotal features of Dutch Golden Age painting), but as it ought to be according to the classical canons of beauty.
[1] To achieve this purpose, the Amsterdam art theoretician proposed that the human protagonists of genre painting (especially women), no matter which social class they belonged to, be represented after classical antiquity sculptures, with their unsurpassable perfection and proportion.
[1] In fact, the social scenario in the Netherlands changed dramatically after 1672, the so-called "year of calamities", and the subsequent war against France, England, and several German states: the aftermath of the conflict saw most of the commercial power of Holland ending up shattered, thus drastically reducing the number of rich collectors interested in buying new works of art.
Subsequently, the painters started to modify their style in order to get accustomed with the predominant taste of the few, powerful regents left in the country, who usually aimed at formally elegant and proportionate paintings rather than truthful representations of real life such as those produced during the Golden Age.
[1] Moreover, reusing the same motifs and figures in several paintings allowed the artists to save time and energy, thus leading them to produce more works and having more possibilities of finding an interested collector.
This was again due to the necessity of pleasing the few patrons and collectors, who greatly admired the works of artists such as Gerard Dou, a member of the first generation of fijnschilders.
In this respect, Van Mieris proved to be discreet enough to carefully choose which elements to take from other painters' works in order not to be accused of plagiarism, which was already an issue at the time.
[1] The artist's reference to classical sculpture follows the instructions outlined by Gerard de Lairesse for the improvement of genre painting in his book Groot Schilderboek.
During the beginning stages of van Mieris' career between 1680 and 1687, the artist produced numerous paintings and drawings depicting young women often represented as mythological figures, which were modelled after his wife.
The inclusion of peonies helps signify feminine beauty and fertility, which is appropriate given the context of the painting's execution taking place only one year before Willem's and Agneta's wedding.
He was one of the most important clients of Van Mieris and showed great interest in Dutch genre paintings, also called "modern" pieces at the time.
[11] No relationship between the two patrons has been established, except for an archival document from the eighteenth century, which testifies Van Wassenaer's intention to buy Dou's Grocer's Shop.
Allard de la Court, who inherited most of his father's collection, describes Van Wassenaer's efforts to acquire the painting at a hefty price.
Some of his paintings were even refused by the commissioner, as happened with the German prince of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, who decided not to accept Frans's Diana bathing (executed in close collaboration with Willem) due to its poor quality.
[citation needed] After these unsatisfactory results, Frans van Mieris the Younger soon quit painting to dedicate himself to antiquarian collections: he was a highly esteemed expert in numismatics, a field he wrote several renowned treatises on.
In Willem van Mieris's Lute Player from 1711, the woman depicted in the painting strikingly resembles Bathsheba, which is representative of the painter's repetition of figures.
[citation needed] Van Mieris's painting Le Thé is mostly to be inspired Gerard de Lairesse's idea to depict a tea party in his book Groot Schilderboek (1707), in which he translates the laws of international classicism into practical rules for artist's to apply in their studios.
Van Mieris called the painting "'t Fraai Curieus" ("the fine curiosity), using an expression that was common in the 18th century to refer to travelling minstrels.
Typical for Van Mieris' work is that the woman is dressed in a rather fashionable manner, creating a striking contrast between the elegant lady in the classical interior and her feeding the cat, an act which befits a maid better.
[citation needed] This scene in the shop allows Van Mieris to display his skill at emulating reality in a large variety of subjects.
The only work that has come down to us are four vases commissioned by his patron Pieter de la Court van der Voort, which were designed for the garden of his Leiden mansion.
[citation needed] Willemijn Fock was able to identify six of these drawings and noticed that four vases decorating the gardens of Windsor Castle in England were signed "W. van Mieris inv[enit] et fecit" and Roman numerals state the year of production.
[citation needed] After comparison of the drawings and the actual vases, there was no doubt that these were commissioned by Pieter de la Court and to later be acquired by the British royal family in 1825.
Willem van Mieris succeeded in achieving remarkable popularity in the Netherlands, with his paintings hanging in the collections of many eminent members of the Dutch new aristocracy as well as of foreign noblemen such as the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.
[citation needed] On the other hand, the Leiden fijnschilders and the Italianate painters were regarded as traitors of this exceptional artistic movement, being still imprisoned by the old and aristocratic canons of classicizing beauty.
