Willem van Mieris was born in June 1662 as the second son of the famous Leiden ‘fijnschilder’ Frans van Mieris (1635-1681) and his wife Cunera van der Cock. Like his older brother, Jan van Mieris (1660-1690), Willem was taught by their father Frans. When Frans untimely died in 1681 the brothers took over their father’s workshop. Not much later, in June 1683, Willem joined the Leiden’s Guild of St Luke, which he would serve as a board member and dean several times throughout his long career. On 24 April 1684 Willem married Agneta Chapman (1663-1743). Their marriage produced three children, of whom Frans van Mieris the Younger (1689-1763) became a painter like his father and grandfather before him. During these years he also founded, together with his fellow painters Jacob Toorenvliet (1640-1719) and Carel de Moor (1655-1738), the Leiden drawing academy, which he led until 1636.

 

Following in his father’s footsteps, Willem was a very successful ‘fijnschilder’, whose refined works were much sought after – nationally, and internationally – and brought him considerable prosperity. In addition to history works, Willem produced genre, allegory, and portraits, mostly on small scale. Undoubtedly his most important Dutch benefactor was his peer Pieter de la Court van der Voort (1664-1739), a wealthy cloth merchant, art connoisseur, author and botanist-gardener, who owned no less than fifteen works by Van Mieris. Van Mieris also caught the attention of several foreign princely collectors, such as Lothar Franz von Schönborn (1655–1729), Archbishop of Mainz, Bishop of Bamberg and Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, one of the greatest collectors of his time. Lothar Franz’s competitor in this field, Duke Anton Ulrich von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel (1633–1714) highly valued Van Mieris as well. Both noblemen visited Willem in his workshop on their trips to the Dutch Republic. On 26 January 1747, after a long and prosperous career, Van Mieris at the tender age of 84 died at Backershagen, the Wassenaar country house of the Backer family, who had likewise commissioned Van Mieris throughout the years. He was buried the next day in Leiden’s St Pieter’s Church.

 

The present Portrait of an Architect – its small oval copper support providing the perfect basis for Van Mieris’s minute technique and talent for detail – is a prime example of the artist’s delicate and eloquent style. Depicted against a subtle olive-green background is a handsome man, presumably in his thirties or fourties. With his fashionable long dark curly hair and thoughtful, intelligent glance at the beholder, he comes across as naturally confident. His leisurely opened white chemise, the sky-blue jacket with subtle brown lining held together by a precious brooch, and his lush wine-red velvet mantle, lined with silk, articulate both affluence and sprezzatura. The prominent paper scroll in his right hand depicts a building plan, seemingly showing the apse and altar of a church. Proudly pointing his index finger to it, the plan identifies him as an architect or master builder.

 

While difficult to see, our portrait is fully signed in orange, and dated 1708. As such, it relates neatly to several other oval portraits that Van Mieris painted that year, such as the miniature portrait of his mecenas Pieter de la Court van der Voort, last seen in an Amsterdam auction in 1904. Depicted against a landscape background, De la Court’s boyish glance and long dark hair align well with the unconstrained atmosphere of the present portrait. Striking, too, is the affinity with the virtually identically sized Pendant Portraits of an Elegant Couple in the Leiden Collection, New York. Painted against a similarly olive-green background and done with the same masterful brilliance, it is specifically the male portrait that begs comparison. Although somewhat more formal in posture – his gaze more serious and directed to his wife, the right hand directed to his chest – the anonymous sitter shares with our sitter a similar pose and clothing: a white chemise (here worn with a jabot), a brown jacket with blue lining held together by a costly brooch, and a grey-purple velvet mantle, similarly wrapped around him. Moreover, the sitter’s long dark hair falls over his shoulder in much the same way seen in our portrait. That said, our sitter wears his hair au naturel, whereas the Leiden Collection’s sitter clearly wears a wig. We come across the same visual repertoire again in another kindred work, Van Mieris’s much larger Self Portrait in the Leiden Lakenhal. Signed nor dated, the work without question stems from the exact same period. It depicts Van Mieris – who clearly wears a wig – in the same fashionable costume, and pointing out the tools of his trade: an easel, brushes, a palette and a prepared panel or copper plate.

As to the identification of the present sitter, we remain in the dark. Given his estimated age, he was likely born between c. 1660 and 1680. As said, the building plan on the scroll strongly suggests that he is an architect. Traditionally, architects were depicted either without attributes, or with a compass and/or a building plan as, for instance, seen in the portrait of the Amsterdam architect and stonemason Cornelis Danckertsz de Rij (1561-1634) by his son Pieter Danckerts (1605-1660). The portrait of Inigo Jones (1573-1652) by Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) depicts the famous English architect merely with a blank piece of paper in his hand. And the 1734-dated portrait of the Amsterdam city carpenter/architect Cornelis Kruyck depicts him sitting at a desk, surrounded by a variety of artistic objects, as he – like the present sitter – points his index finger at a drawing, in this case of a typical Amsterdam house façade, which is signed with his name.

 

In contrast, the apse-shape in the building plan seen in the present portrait does not relate to civil urban architecture but, apparently, to a Catholic church building. In the Republic in 1708 this specific architecture to be constructed seems unusual. In principle, Catholic churches were not forbidden by the Dutch authorities – Catholicism was condoned – but Catholics were required to practice their communal worship in clandestine churches (so-called ‘schuilkerken’), which were usually located in houses or other existing buildings. While their interiors could certainly be rich, these ‘schuilkerken’ did not show a public façade to the street. Well known Dutch Catholic architects of the approximately correct age were, for instance, Simon Schijnvoet (1653-1727), Steven Vennekool (1656/57-1719) and his younger brother Jacob Vennekool II (c. 1659-1711). If, however, the drawing held by our sitter indeed depicts an apse, the possibility cannot be excluded that he might have been a foreign architect.