Cavalier in the Shop

The Latin on the length of cloth hanging in this shop can be read two ways. Comparat qui vult means roughly let him buy who wishes, or let him compare who wishes, and the cavalier is doing both, one hand on the fabric and the other lifting the shop girl's chin. The Kunsthistorisches Museum reads the picture of the death of Abel on the wall behind them as a reminder of where the first sin led.

In 1660, the year it was painted, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm bought it for 1,000 guilders, an extraordinary sum for a panel about 55 centimetres tall. According to the early biographer Arnold Houbraken, the archduke then offered Van Mieris a post as court painter in Vienna at 2,500 guilders a year, and the painter turned it down, saying his wife would not leave Leiden. Historians add a plainer reason. He already had more paying customers at home than he could easily serve.