Frans van Mieris the Elder

Frans van Mieris grew up in Leiden as the son of a goldsmith, and something of that trade stayed in his hand. He trained with Gerrit Dou, the founder of the Leiden fijnschilders, the 'fine painters' who worked on a small scale with a jeweller's patience, and Dou called him the prince of his pupils, the one who carried off the crown from them all.

His pictures are small domestic scenes, a woman in satin, a doctor at a bedside, a couple at a table, every surface polished until the brushwork seems to disappear. Collectors paid fortunes for them. Cosimo III de' Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, sought out his work in the 1670s, and van Mieris earned enough to live like a gentleman.

He founded a family workshop, and his son Willem and grandson Frans the Younger kept the fine manner going into the next century. He died in Leiden in 1681, deep in debt despite the prices his paintings had once fetched.