WILLEM VAN MIERIS (Leiden 1662-1747)

Cimon and Iphigenia

Details

WILLEM VAN MIERIS (Leiden 1662-1747)
Cimon and Iphigenia
signed and dated 'W. VAN MIERIS. FECIT. ANNO. 1713' (lower center)
oil on canvas
27½ x 23 7/8 in. (70 x 60.5 cm.)

Provenance

(Probably) P. Cauw, Leiden; his sale, Luchtmans, Leiden, 24 August 1768, lot 12 (550 florins to de Jong).
(Probably) collection X...; his sale, De Winter Yver, Amsterdam, 12 February 1770 lot 1 (430 florins).
Private collection, France.

Literature

(Probably) C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné, etc., London, 1928, X, p. 136, no. 128.

Lot Essay

The subject of the present work painting comes from an episode in Boccaccio's Decameron (5:1), in which Cimon, the coarse son of a nobleman of Cyprus, falls in love with the maiden Iphigenia and finally marries her after a series of misfortunes. The effects of his love transform him into an elegant and cultured gentleman. This moral allegory was popular with seventeenth-century Netherlandish painters. Here the artist has chosen to depict the moment when Cimon, clad in peasant clothing, first sets eyes on Iphigenia as she lies asleep beside a fountain in a woodland setting.

Another version of the present composition (oil on panel, 25½ x 21½ in.) was in the collection of the Comte Du Barry and then with the Prince de Conti (see. Hofstede de Groot, op. cit., no. 142).

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