Criticism and appreciation Willem van Mieris succeeded in achieving remarkable popularity in the Netherlands, with his paintings hanging in the collections of many eminent members of the Dutch new aristocracy as well as of foreign noblemen such as the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. However, his reputation was not held in as high esteem when it comes to later art critics: Dezallier d'Argenville, though recognizing the ability of Van Mieris as a painter, states in his Abrégé that he was never able to match the level of his father, Frans van Mieris the Elder, whose fame was still celebrated in Europe when Willem painted his major works. This opinion was reflected in the foreign market as well, as this anecdote describes; Pieter de la Court van der Voort (1664–1739) was travelling through France in 1700, intending to sell a work by Willem van Mieris. He covered up the artist's signature to hide the fact that it was a work by Willem, not his father Frans van Mieris, as the value of the painting would be drastically lowered when it would be known that it was the son who painted it. Much harsher is the opinion of Théophile Thoré, the major critic of Dutch art in the 19th century: in his Musées de la Hollande, a catalogue of the most important works of art exposed in the Netherlands, the French connoisseur blatantly despised Willem van Mieris, labeling his paintings as "harsh, cold, piddling, and unsurpassably insipid". All things considered, no other kind of statement could be expected from Thoré on a painter such as Van Mieris: the Dutch painter embodied the new, classicizing tendency of Dutch art in the 18th century, a tendency that Thoré viewed as the death and destruction of the Golden Age. In fact, the French critic idealized Dutch 17th-century painting as the most complete expression of freedom and independence ever achieved by European art, with Rembrandt and Vermeer as icons of a popular, real and truthful way of painting. On the other hand, the Leiden fijnschilders and the Italianate painters were regarded as traitors of this exceptional artistic movement, being still imprisoned by the old and aristocratic canons of classicizing beauty. Works Lady with Parrot (1685) The Escaped Bird (1687) A Seated Man (1688) Cimon and Iphigeneia (1698) Family Reunion (17th century) Diana and her Nymphs (1702) A Gentleman Offering a Lady a Bunch of Grapes (1707) A Poultry