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 1731i His son Allard de la Court van der Voort, and in his inventories of 1739ii and 1749iii 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 Ignaz Sebastian Klauber after a drawing by Michaeloff, 1812, when in the Duval collection VP4585 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 Hollandiv. 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 Elderv. As Naumannvi, van de Weteringvii 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 Florenceviii. 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 1812ix, 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.