Michiel van Musscher Rotterdam 1645 - 1705 Amsterdam

Anonymous (M.A.G. van der Leeuw, A. van Rooy, M.J. Ameschot, a.o.) sale, Amsterdam, Fred. Muller, 15-17 June 1937, lot 55.

Born in Rotterdam, Michiel van Musscher received an eclectic training: initially with the obscure history painter Martin Saagmolen in 1660; then with the Leiden history and portrait painter Abraham van den Tempel from 1661; then with Gabriel Metsu, whose work was to have a profound influence, in 1665; and finally in Haarlem under Adriaen van Ostade in 1667. By 1668 he had settled in Amsterdam, where, in addition to genre scenes in the style of the Leiden Fijnschilders and, incongruously, Van Ostade, he developed a successful practice as a portrait painter: portraying his sitters in well-to-do interiors, as here, or in landscape settings.  His work is sometimes reminiscent of that of his contemporary Eglon Hendrik van der Neer (1634-1703), who also deployed a mise-en-page akin to lavish genre interiors; see for example his Elegant couple in an Interior, dated 1678, sold London, Sotheby's, 6 December 1989,  lot 101.  By the 1670s Musscher had virtually abandoned genre painting, and by the mid-1680s, when he painted the present picture, he was one of the most sought-after portraitists in Amsterdam.