that these were commissioned by Pieter de la Court and to later be acquired by the British Royal Family in 1825. The four vases portray the four seasons and the shape of the vases are classically inspired on the Medici-vase and the Borghese-vase, but also after the vases of the Versailles palace. The seasonal division is quite traditional, going back to classical literature. Willem van Mieris is likely to have read the translation of Cesare Ripa's Iconologia and represented spring with sacrifice to Flora and Priapus, summer with the bath of Diana and a sacrifice to Ceres, autumn with a parade for Bacchus, and winter with Venus ordering weapons for Aeneas and warming herself to a fire after Ceres and Bacchus leave her. Willem van Mieris always carefully prepared his paintings in order to find the right composition and to study certain elements. Two of his spring drawings can be considered the most carefully done and may be the best work in his large oeuvre of drawings. For the vases, as a source of inspiration he used both his own work and the works of others, both Dutch and Italian, that was brought to him by De la Court especially for this project. He probably used works of Rembrandt and the Flemish Francis van Bossuit. The drawings and actual vases are not a perfect match: the composition differs at times especially by the omittance of figures or details (often because of lack of space or because of lack of space or because the overall picture or story looked better without). Willem van Mieris was the designer and molder of the reliefs. He collaborated with his friend Filips van der Mij, who was responsible for the casting, and his son Hieronimus van der Mij would later study under van Mieris. The feet and lids of the vases were made by Giovanni Battista Lurago under the supervision of van Mieris. Allard de la Court also commissioned van Mieris a fountain piece, again in collaboration with Filips van der Mij. The sculpture has been destroyed, but the receipts of the purchase give a detailed description of the work: Hercules strangling the head of a serpent while holding it up. The water sprayed out of the serpent's mouth. However, the fountain has not come down to us, making the vases the only pieces of sculpture by Willem van Mieris that we can admire today.