Lot 203: Jan van Mieris Leiden 1660 - 1690 Rome , A woman holding a Dog in a Landscape

oil on panel

measurements note 10 1/2 by 8 1/8 in.; 26.7 by 20.7 cm.

C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, vol. 10, p. 87, no. 322 (as Frans van Mieris the Elder);
O. Naumann, Frans van Mieris the Elder, 1918, vol. II, p. 134, no. B20, illustrated, fig. CB20 (as possibly by Frans van Mieris the Younger).

Jan Six Collection, Amsterdam;
Schrodering Collection, Hamburg;
G. Winckler, Leipzig, cat. 1768, no. 433;
With Newhouse Galleries, New York, inventory no. 16516;
Anonymous sale ("Property of a Private Collector, Southern California"), New York, Sotheby's, October 15, 1987, lot 26 (as by Frans van Mieris the Younger).

Hofstede de Groot considered this picture to be an autograph work by Frans van Mieris the Elder but, at the time of the 1987 Sotheby's sale, Otto Naumann had published it as more likely a work by Frans van Mieris the Younger (see Literature.) Since that time, Dr. Naumann has revised his opinion and suggested, instead, that it was painted by Jan van Mieris, Frans van Mieris the Elder's eldest son, whose style most closely resembled that of his famous father's late work. This attribution has been confirmed by Margreet van der Hut based on photographs. Ms. van der Hut points out a few characteristics that place the present painting securely in the realm of Jan's small oeuvre. These include the way the artist modelled the woman's face, casting the left side in shadow, the artist?s placement of the shawl around the woman?s neck, covering her décolleté, the size of the woman's left hand, and the distinctive curve of the woman?s wrist, a characteristic that Jan may have borrowed from either his father's late work or from Gerard de Lairesse, with whom Jan studied.