A Soldier Smoking a Pipe
c. 1657/1658
Medium
oil on panel
Dimensions
overall: 32.4 × 25.4 cm (12 3/4 × 10 in.)
Classification
Painting
Department
CNE-B
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund
Accession Number
2016.10.1
Art Historical Context
Frans van Mieris, one of the leading painters of the Dutch Golden Age, created this intimate genre scene around 1657–1658. A pupil of Gerard Dou in Leiden, van Mieris belonged to the fijnschilders (“fine painters”), renowned for their meticulous brushwork and jewel-like detail on a small scale. Measuring just over 12 by 10 inches, the oil-on-panel work invites close looking, rewarding viewers with the subtle textures of fabric, smoke, and weathered skin. The subject—a soldier pausing to enjoy his pipe—reflects the period’s fascination with everyday moments after the Eighty Years’ War. Rather ...