Long considered a second version, with changes to the clothing, of a small panel painting by Frans van Mieris in The Leiden Collection, New York, this exceptionally refined painting on copper is most likely the work of his son, Willem. Documentary evidence indicates that Willem produced a number of drawn and painted copies after his father’s work, though these works have largely defied identification to date. For example, the 1749 inventory of the collection of the exceptional paintings collection formed by Pieter de la Court and his wife, Sarah Poelaart, in Leiden lists several copies by Willem after Frans’ paintings. Perhaps not coincidentally, among the copies by Willem described in the de la Court’s inventory is the 1667 Self-Portrait in Berlin (see Naumann, op. cit., p. 32, no. 29), which the couple had acquired in 1730 as a pendant to the painting in The Leiden Collection.
We are grateful to Quentin Buvelot for assisting with the cataloguing of this lot. The present painting will be discussed in a forthcoming online article on Frans van Mieris by the author for The Leiden Collection.