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Lot Essay
Willem van Mieris was the most successful genre painter of his generation. With his utterly refined cabinet pieces he carried forth the torch of Leiden fine painting, lit by Gerrit Dou two generations earlier and kept alight by the latter’s pupil Frans van Mieris the Elder, Willem’s father and teacher. In this 1690 dated, early inn scene Van Mieris indulged in painstakingly rendering the countless details and in faithfully describing the many different surface qualities. A stunning example of his virtuoso high finish is the still life of a meal of herring and plaice, a bun of bread and the brown German stoneware jug on the table. The hurdy-gurdy is unmatched in its verisimilitude.
Succumbing to the effects of alcohol, the aged hurdy-gurdy player has fallen asleep with his instrument on his lap. The landlady has seized his moneybag and triumphantly holds it up as a trophy. Two peasants look up from their chat. Invariably characterized as beggars dressed in rags, like the musician in our painting, hurdy-gurdy players are a recurrent motif in Dutch peasant painting. They were known to enliven merry gatherings with the primitive and penetrating sound of their instrument. Another, example in terracotta is the sculpture of a caricaturist hurdy-gurdy player, made in 1673 by the Flemming Pieter Xaveri, who was mainly active in the Dutch Republic (fig. 1).
In his painting Van Mieris is elaborating on the time-honoured theme of unequal love and the scene is packed with sexual innuendo. In traditional depictions of mercenary love the elderly protagonist would be a scrooge, but Van Mieris made his a poor one. He is not only lacking libido but barely has any money to buy the young woman’s favours. The erotic connotations of the tiny purse and of the fish hanging from the table would not have gone unnoticed at the time. Van Mieris’ double entendre was perfectly grasped and in turn varied upon by his own pupil Hieronymus van der Mij. The latter’s Old woman buying a cockerel from a young female poultry seller probably dates of the 1740s and was painted as a pendant for the present painting (currently Mayer van den Bergh Museum, Antwerp).
Willem shared his penchant for lively tavern scenes such as the present with his father Frans the Elder. Willem painted several hurdy-gurdy players set in an inn. The dealer and collector Jean-Baptiste Pierre Lebrun owned one that is now lost and included a reproductive print of it in his famous Galerie des peintres … (1792-96).
Succumbing to the effects of alcohol, the aged hurdy-gurdy player has fallen asleep with his instrument on his lap. The landlady has seized his moneybag and triumphantly holds it up as a trophy. Two peasants look up from their chat. Invariably characterized as beggars dressed in rags, like the musician in our painting, hurdy-gurdy players are a recurrent motif in Dutch peasant painting. They were known to enliven merry gatherings with the primitive and penetrating sound of their instrument. Another, example in terracotta is the sculpture of a caricaturist hurdy-gurdy player, made in 1673 by the Flemming Pieter Xaveri, who was mainly active in the Dutch Republic (fig. 1).
In his painting Van Mieris is elaborating on the time-honoured theme of unequal love and the scene is packed with sexual innuendo. In traditional depictions of mercenary love the elderly protagonist would be a scrooge, but Van Mieris made his a poor one. He is not only lacking libido but barely has any money to buy the young woman’s favours. The erotic connotations of the tiny purse and of the fish hanging from the table would not have gone unnoticed at the time. Van Mieris’ double entendre was perfectly grasped and in turn varied upon by his own pupil Hieronymus van der Mij. The latter’s Old woman buying a cockerel from a young female poultry seller probably dates of the 1740s and was painted as a pendant for the present painting (currently Mayer van den Bergh Museum, Antwerp).
Willem shared his penchant for lively tavern scenes such as the present with his father Frans the Elder. Willem painted several hurdy-gurdy players set in an inn. The dealer and collector Jean-Baptiste Pierre Lebrun owned one that is now lost and included a reproductive print of it in his famous Galerie des peintres … (1792-96).