MIERIS, FRANZ VAN, called the elder (1635-1681), son of Jan van Mieris, and chief member of a family of Leyden painters, was born, according to Houbraken, at Leyden on April 16, 1635, and died there on March 12, 168i.
Franz took service with Abraham Torenvliet, a glazier who kept a school of design. In his father's jewellery shop he became familiar with the ways and dress of people of distinction. His eye was fascinated in turn by the sheen of jewellery and stained glass; and, though he soon gave up the teaching of Torenvliet for that of Gerard Dou and Abraham van den Tempel, he acquired a manner which had more of the finish of the exquisites of the Dutch school than of the breadth of the disciples of Rembrandt. He seldom chose panels of which the size exceeded 12 to 15 in. Mieris never ventured to design figures as large as life. Characteristic of his art in its minute proportions is a shiny brightness and metallic polish. The subjects which he treated best are those in which he illus trated the habits or actions of the wealthier classes; but he some times succeeded in homely incidents and in portrait, and he some times ventured on allegory. He often rivalled Ter Borch in the faithful rendering of rich and highly-coloured woven tissues. In
the form of his composition, which sometimes represents the framework of a window enlivened with greenery, and adorned with bas-reliefs with figures to the waist, his model is Gerard Dou.
One of his best-known pieces, a party of ladies and gentlemen at an oyster luncheon, in the Hermitage at Leningrad, bears the date of 1659. Another beautiful example, the "Doctor Feeling a Lady's Pulse" in the gallery of Vienna, is dated 1656. In the same gallery is one of his masterpieces "the Cavalier and the Lace maker," dated 166o. In 1657 Mieris was married at Leyden. On May 14, 1658 he was elected a member of the Guild at Leyden. Of the numerous panels by Mieris, twenty-nine at least are dated -the latest being an allegory, long in the Ruhl collection at Cologne, showing drinking, smoking and dicing, in the year 1680.
Mieris received valuable commissions from Archduke Leopold, the elector-palatine, and Cosiino III., grand-duke of Tuscany. His practice was large and lucrative. If there be a difference between the painter's earlier and later work, it is that the former was clearer and more delicate in flesh, whilst the latter was often darker and more livid in the shadows.