Leiden Collection upload Frans van Mieris Catalogue Note
January 21 2022

Picture: The Leiden Collection
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Leiden Collection have announced that they have published a full scholarly catalogue note for Frans van Mieris's A Young Woman Writing a Letter. This recent acquisition was once in the collection of Catherine the Great of Russia and was eventually sold by the Soviet Union in 1929.
A short snippet from the catalogue note:
The intimate character of A Young Woman Writing a Letter is closely related to its distinctive brushwork and muted palette of grays, browns, ochres, and purple. Van Mieris executed this painting with mostly fluid, thin brushstrokes, in some areas in only one or two layers, and left the brown ground layer exposed in certain places to enhance the effect of shadow, as in the darker areas along the side of the woman’s neck and beneath the folded corners of the letter in the foreground. This unusual technique has led Quentin Buvelot to raise the possibility that the painting was not finished, yet the careful and nuanced manner with which Van Mieris approached the composition—and the presence of the artist’s signature—indicates otherwise.