Willem van Mieris

Van Winter, Amsterdam;
H. Six van Hillegom, 1832;
His sale, Amsterdam, 25 November 1851, lot 29;
G. Donaldson;
His sale, London, Christie's, 6 July 1901, lot 82;
Probably W. Clarence Watson;
Probably his sale, London, Christie's, 16 February 1907, lot 73;
With Thos. Agnew and Sons Ltd., London, 1950;
Anonymous sale ("The Property of a Gentleman"), London, Sotheby's, 6 July 1983, lot 92;
There purchased by Bernard Palitz. 

J. Smith, A catalogue raisonné of the works of the most eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, vol. I, London 1829, p. 104, no. 63;
C. Hofstede de Groot, Catalogue raisonné..., vol. X, London 1928, pp. 151, no. 184.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's.This work is on a single piece of unreinforced oak. The panel is flat, supporting a stable paint layer. The painting is dirty, but the condition is splendid. Under ultraviolet light, one can see that there are a few tiny recent spots of retouching in the male figure's belly and beneath the tray in front of him. It is doubtful that any further restorations will be revealed if and when the painting is cleaned. The fine details are perfectly preserved.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This highly refined and finished scene of a poulterer's shop, viewed through a draped, open window, forms part of a rich tradition of meticulously executed works characteristic of the Leiden fijnschilders. Both in style and subject matter it is entirely consistent with the artist's mature output  in which he assimilates the technique of his father, Frans van Mieris, as well as a compositional format made popular by Gerrit Dou a generation earlier. The picture surface, which is in a beautiful state of preservation, is rendered with a smooth, enamel-like finish in the skin of the figures, as is the trompe-l'oeil bas-relief, as he does in a number of works from this mature period, for example The Greengrocer (see fig. 1; Wallace Collection, London) executed a few years after (1731) the present work. This adeptness in rendering realistic surfaces is further highlighted in the superbly naturalistic representation of the various soft materials such as the hair, feathers, and draped wool. The combination of a strong, luminous light and a virtuoso attention to detail defines the forms and differing textures within the scene with a level of verisimilitude for which the Leiden fijnschilders were as admired during their lifetime as they are today. 

The bas-relief featured at the base of the composition, which Van Mieris repeats in a number of other works, is closely related to a design by François Du Quesnoy that was earlier borrowed by Gerrit Dou for two works similarly depicting young ladies at a window.¹

1. See, for example, the 1732-dated Grocer's Shop sold London, Christie's, 13 December 1991, lot 36, and the 1710-dated Quack doctor sold Vienna, Dorotheum, 9-10 March 1993, lot 246; the two Dous are in London, National Gallery, and Rotterdam, Boijmans van Beuningen Museum and for sculpted examples of the design see M. Boudon-Machuel, François du Quesnoy, Paris 2005, p. 276ff, cat. no. In.64a.