Jan van Mieris

Dutch painter

Jan van Mieris (17 June 1660 – 17 March 1690) was a Dutch painter.

Jan van Mieris (17 June 1660 – 17 March 1690) was a Dutch painter born in Leiden, the eldest son of Frans van Mieris the Elder and Cunera van der Cocq (Sluijter et al. 1988, p. 149). His siblings were Frans II, Christina and Willem Mieris, who was also a painter. After a short apprenticeship in his father's atelier, he was meant to be educated in history paintings with Gerard de Lairesse. Still, his father refrained from doing so due to Lairesse's unscrupulous lifestyle (Sluijter et al. 1988, p. 149). It is also reported that Jan van Mieris suffered from kidney stones which impeded his progress in his studies (Vogelaar, 2014, p. 20)

In 1684 Jan van Mieris was mentioned as a witness at the wedding of his brother Willem van Mieris, at that stage, he lived at the Blommemark (Flowermarket) in Leiden (Sluijter et al. 1988, p. 149). Afterwards, on June 14, 1686, he paid his entry fee for the Leiden Guild of st. Luke in Leiden. Jan van Mieris paid 3 guilders, half of the regular entry price, because he was the son of a master (Aono, 2014, p. 177). The work of Jan van Mieris was loved by collectors with great names, amongst them the De la Court family from Leiden (Vogelaar, 2014, p. 22). The archive of the Leiden Remonstrant Church shows that Jan lived with his mother on the Oude Vest for a short period. In the same year, he must have moved to Italy, as on January 14 of 1689, he wrote a letter to his mother from Venice. From this letter, it is concluded that he was healthy. However, he didn't sell any paintings and therefore had plans to continue his travels to Florence (Sluijter et al., 1989, p. 294). He was invited to the court of Cosimo III de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, by friends of his father, but because of religious grounds, he was sent off (Van Gool,  1751, vol. 2, p. 444)  

He then proceeded to Rome, where his abilities were already well known. In that city, Jan found himself in the company of a group of young painters with a bad reputation, probably the so called Bentvueghels, and his condition worsened, but he continued to work for as long as he could (Aono, 2014, p. 177). On March 17, 1690, he died in Rome at 30 (Houbraken,1721, vol. 3 p. 12). An account of Jan's last days has been published by the painter Erasmus Causse (1660 1738), who also describes Jan's funeral outside the city gate of Rome. More than 40 works by Jan van Mieris are known, including one he painted in Rome, dated 1690. However, his oeuvre doesn't entail more than 30 paintings and one drawing (Vogelaar, 2014, p. 20)

Six more drawings were recently added to Jan van Mieris' oeuvre. In his finished drawings, he tried to follow in the footsteps of his father and his brother. However, as mentioned in 1751 by r Jan van Gool, Jan van Mieris did not have the talent or the inclination for detailed painting. This is seen in Jan's drawings, with a sketchy style that seems unexpected given his Leiden 'Fijnschilder' background, yet relatively recognizable, especially since his compositions have certain recurrent features (Tatenhove, 2007, p. 43). The first of the newly attributed drawings is the study for the painting "Minerva elevates the arts". Correspondingly, five of the six newly attributed drawings are centred around mythology or classical history: "Socrates and Xanthippe," "Paris and Oenone," "Belisarius as a blind beggar recognized by a soldier," "Cecrops' daughter discovers the serpent shaped Erinchthonius" "Pandora handed over to Epimetheus by Mercury" and "The death of Lucretia" (Tatenhove, 2007, p. 43)

Jan van Mieris was also a poet. He translated the play Aminta, written by Torquato Tasso and also wrote several poems himself. Three of these poems concern his father: one is about his fathers painting "The old lover" and in the two other poems Jan mourns his father's death. These poems and the translation of the play, are part of a manuscript kept in the University Library in Leiden (Van der Hut, 2009, p. 5. ), Jan van Mieris was twenty one years old and his brother Willem was eighteen when his father Frans van Mieris the elder died in 1681. It is not self evident that the poems Jan van Mieris's manuscript were also created by himself. It is possible that he copied them; in any case, he considered them worth writing down (Vogelaar, 2014, p. 22).