accurately recorded this master's birthday. One of his best-known pieces, a party of ladies and gentlemen at an oyster luncheon, in the Hermitage at St Petersburg, bears the date of 1650. Celebrated alike for composition and finish, it would prove that Mieris had reached his prime at the age of fifteen. Another beautiful example, the "Doctor Feeling a Lady's Pulse" in the gallery of Vienna, is dated 1656; and Waagen, in one of his critical essays, justly observes that it is a remarkable production for a youth of twenty-one. In 1657 Mieris was married at Leiden in the presence of Jan Potheuck, a painter, and this is the earliest written record of his existence on which we can implicitly rely. Of the numerous panels by Mieris, at least twenty-nine (such as Young Woman Stringing Pearls) are dated—the latest being an allegory, long in the Ruhl collection at Cologne, illustrating what he considered the kindred vices of drinking, smoking and dicing, in the year 1680. Mieris had numerous and distinguished patrons. He received valuable commissions from Archduke Leopold, the elector-palatine, and Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. His practice was large and lucrative, but never engendered in him either carelessness or neglect. If there be a difference between the painter's earlier and later work, it is that the former was clearer and more delicate in flesh, whilst the latter was often darker and more livid in the shadows. When he died his clients naturally went over to his son Willem, who in turn bequeathed his painting-room to his son Frans. But neither Willem nor Frans van Mieris the Younger equalled Frans the elder. The pictures of all the generations of the Mieris family were successfully imitated by A. D. Snaphaan, who lived at Leipzig and was patronized by the court of Anhalt-Dessau. To those who would study his deceptive form of art a visit to the collection of Wörlitz near Dessau may afford instruction. Theft In early June 2007, A Cavalier (Self Portrait), dated to 1657–1659, was stolen from the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. The 20 cm by 16 cm (6 inches by 8 inches) painting had been donated to the Art Gallery of NSW in 1993 by media figure and philanthropist, James Fairfax. References External links Selfportrait with cittern Art Gallery of New South Wales - collection search Works and literature 1635 births