Willem van Mieris

Willem van Mieris was one of the best known painters in the Leiden school known as the Fijnschilders (Fine Painters). The Fijnschilders, whose practitioners included Willem’s father, Frans van Mieris (1635-1681) and his master, Gerrit Dou (1613-1675) created small scale, highly naturalistic paintings with a smooth finish. Willem von Mieris executed mainly interior scenes. His repertoire of subjects was larger than many other fijnschilders and he painted scenes stories inspired by biblical and mythological subjects as well as classical literature. While his handling of paint remained true to his school, Willmen van Mieris began to favor more bucolic subjects over time. From the eighteenth century onwards Willem van Mieris’s works were sought after by collectors.