Lot Essay
Little is known of the first three decades of the life of Miel, who was born at Beveren, near Antwerp. He was in Rome by 1633, when he signed and dated a pair of bambocciate now in the Louvre. It is for such scenes of everyday life that Miel is best known, but he is recorded as late as 1641 as a student of Andrea Sacchi and by the late 1640s was developing a career as a history painter. An altarpiece of The Madonna and Child with Saint Anthony of Padua and other Saints of 1651 is at Chieri (Catalogue of the exhibition Diana Trionfatrice. Arte di Corte nel Piemonte del Seicento, Turin, 27 May-24 Sept. 1989, pp. 196-7, no. 222, illustrated) and between 1651 and c. 1654 Miel executed fresco cycles in the Roman churches of San Martino ai Monti, Santa Maria dell'Anima and San Lorenzo in Lucina. He was still developing his talents as a figure painter in his last years in Turin (see ibid., pp. 118-19, no. 131, illustrated, and three unnumbered colour plates).
No dated history painting by Miel from the 1640s has hitherto been known, a fresco of Saint Sebastian of 1649 having been destroyed in the nineteenth century. The form of the signature on the present picture, untraced since 1931, arouses suspicions that it may have been added after the painting's arrival in France (before 1709). However, in the opinion of Dr. Thomas Kren, to whom we are grateful for his assistance, the date 1645 may well represent the date of execution, and the present picture would thus be Miel's earliest surviving history picture.
It is possible that the present work was acquired for Boyer d'Aguilles by its engraver Sébastien Barras; Boyer paid for Barras' education, was his first master and sent him to study in Rome.
No dated history painting by Miel from the 1640s has hitherto been known, a fresco of Saint Sebastian of 1649 having been destroyed in the nineteenth century. The form of the signature on the present picture, untraced since 1931, arouses suspicions that it may have been added after the painting's arrival in France (before 1709). However, in the opinion of Dr. Thomas Kren, to whom we are grateful for his assistance, the date 1645 may well represent the date of execution, and the present picture would thus be Miel's earliest surviving history picture.
It is possible that the present work was acquired for Boyer d'Aguilles by its engraver Sébastien Barras; Boyer paid for Barras' education, was his first master and sent him to study in Rome.