Cavalier in the Shop

Frans van Mieris and his teacher Gerrit Dou were the most prominent proponents of the so-called “fine paintings” created in Leiden. The characteristic features of these genre scenes were their small format, great detail and the fact that they were sometimes painted on gilt copper. Mieris’s works were sold during his lifetime at remarkably high prices that made them less than easily affordable, even for such wealthy buyers as Archduke Leopold Wilhelm. The painter has used powerful illumination to create an interior that is readily comprehensible to the viewer. Every surface is depicted with great care and sensitivity, and the brushstrokes are no longer visible. The viewer is witness to asales talk that, at the same time, is also an erotic encounter between a man and a woman. An apparently affluent customer is assessing the quality of the fabric laid out before him (in the background on the left are the other goods, stackedneatly on shelves). At the same time he touches the delicate chin of his interlocutor, gazing at her approvingly. This comparison is certainly intended to be ambiguous. Mieris has provided a hidden written message: in the folds of the carpet on the table in the right foreground is a silver band with the word “comparare”, which has several meanings in Latin, including “to buy” and “to compare”. It remains open which of the goods will find a buyer here: the precious fabric or the woman’s love. An old man crouches beneath the fireplace mantle along the back wall. Perhaps his concerned facial expression is intended to be the painter’s admonishing reference to the kind of business that is about tobe concluded: but does the old man view the proceedings as immoral or is he perhaps a procurer?
© Cäcilia Bischoff, Masterpieces of the Picture Gallery. A Brief Guide to the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna 2010