Portrait of a Lady, half-length, wearing a straw hat; and Portrait of a Gentleman, wearing a Hungarian Costume

The present drawings were probably not executed as specific portraits but as anonymous head studies, in the tradition of Lievens and Rembrandt head studies of the first part of the 17th Century. One of Frans van der Mijn's studies, close in character to the present lot, is at the Rijksmuseum and was exhibited at the National Gallery in London and elsewhere, The Age of Elegance; Paintings from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, 1700-1800, 1995, no. 19, illustrated. That picture, dated 1756, is likely to have been executed in England. Frans was taught by his father Herman van der Mijn (c. 1719-1793), but, once established as a portrait painter in Amsterdam, travelled to England in the 1750s. He received many commissions and exhibited at the Free Society until 1772, and probably painted in Cambridge and Norwich. Excessive drinking restricted his work; he died a pauper in 1783.