Saying Grace
c. 1650/1655
Medium
oil on panel
Dimensions
overall: 34.3 x 40 cm (13 1/2 x 15 3/4 in.) framed: 57.31 × 63.02 × 6.99 cm (22 9/16 × 24 13/16 × 2 3/4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Department
CNE-B
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Corcoran Collection (William A. Clark Collection)
Accession Number
2014.136.31
Art Historical Context
Frans van Mieris’s *Saying Grace* captures a tender domestic moment from the Dutch Golden Age. Painted around 1650–1655, the small oil-on-panel work depicts a modest household pausing to offer thanks before a simple meal. Van Mier, a leading figure among the Leiden “fine painters,” specialized in such intimate genre scenes that elevated everyday life to subjects worthy of careful study. The compact scale—roughly 13 by 16 inches—invites close viewing, rewarding the eye with the luminous detail typical of fijnschilder technique. Working in oil on a smooth wooden panel, van Mieris achieved remar...