MICHEL JANSZ. VAN MIEREVELT (DELFT 1566/1567-1641)

Signed and dated 1632, this elegant portrait was painted when van Mierevelt was at the height of his career as a portrait painter to the leading royal and noble families of Europe. The sitter is still unknown to us and yet it was almost certainly painted to celebrate his marriage. The pendant portrait of his wife was completed by van Mierevelt a year earlier, in 1631, and is today in the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon (inv. no. A120). In these two portraits, husband and wife are depicted in complimentary poses, both standing beside a table with their hand resting on an oriental carpet. In his opposite hand he holds a pair of gloves, whilst she holds an ostrich feather fan, and this mirroring of their poses was used as a device by the artist to show the couples solidarity, whilst maintaining their individual characteristics.
By this period van Mierevelt’s reputation was great and he was working between two studios in Delft and The Hague. A few years earlier, the king of England, Charles I, and his eldest son Prince Henry, tried to lure him to London but he was deterred by the 1625 plaque that was raging through the city. He stayed and continued to be in huge demand throughout Europe, painting the King of Sweden and many members of the court of the princes of Orange-Nassau. Together with Gerrit van Honthorst, Mierevelt was the favoured portraitist of the exiled Palatine court of Frederick V (1596-1632).
To cope with this demand van Mierevelt developed a large workshop, which included his sons Pieter and Jan as well as prominent artists of the next generation including Paulus Moreelse, Claes Cornelius Delff, Jacobus Delff Willem, Cornelius van der Vliet and his brother Hendrik. However, the sublime skill evident in the present portrait, and its pendant in Lyon, are characteristic of van Mierevelt’s finest independent work and suggest that the present sitter was an important patron, which necessitated van Mierevelt’s personal attention.