Portrait of the Artist's Wife, Cunera van der Cock

Frans van Mieris painted his wife, Cunera van der Cock, around 1657 or 1658, about a year after their wedding, on a small oval of parchment barely 16 centimetres tall. Not all of what you see now is his. Probably in the late 18th century the parchment was set into a wooden panel, and a less skilled painter went over the background, lengthened her sleeve and extended the fur cuff, bringing her clothes into line with a fashion that arrived years after she sat. The face is still his. She is seen in profile with her head turned slightly back, looking into the distance. Her hair is combed under a white coif with a gold-embroidered hem, and one fine strand has escaped to lie in shadow on her cheek. The dark red velvet jacket trimmed with white fur tells you the household was doing well without making a show of it. The portrait has a companion, van Mieris's own self-portrait, now in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin.