ORThe Open Room
Digital gallery
Back to the NGA collection
A pale-skinned, bearded man sits at a table set in front of a window and smokes a pipe in this vertical painting. Light pours in from the window and leaves much of the room behind the man in deep shadow. The man’s body is angled to our left, and he rests his right elbow, also to our left, on the table and looks steadily at us. The man has a round face with rosy cheeks and a copper-red beard. His dark, gold-edged hat rolls back away from his face, creating an upward flounce. His cream-white, lace-edged collar lies across his shoulders over a gorget, the piece of silver armor that encircles the neck and comes to a point over the chest. His plum-purple sleeveless jacket and loose, knee-length britches have a sheen. Voluminous white sleeves are covered with strips of black and golden yellow fabric, and yellow fabric flares like a mini cape behind the sleeve we see. The man wears a tawny-brown glove on his left hand, to our right. That hand rests on his hip with the palm facing out. He holds the long, white clay pipe to his lips with his other ungloved hand. A wisp of smoke rises from a burning ember at the end of the pipe. The man’s pants are edged with gold around the bottom hem, which fall loosely around teal-green stockings. His slouchy black boots have square toes, and the tops fall down to reveal crimson-red undersides. A brass band wraps across the arch of the foot closer to us, and a star-shaped spur projects off the back. The man sits on a three-legged stool with a triangular seat. More armor, a horn, and a banner with fringed edges lie in a heap in the bottom right corner of the painting. To the left, a playing card, a seven of hearts, lies face up near a second chair, this one wood with a seat upholstered in iron gray. A forest-green cloak edged with gold fringe is draped over the high back of that seat, and a staff with a metal finial leans against the cloak. The seat and stool face a table mostly covered with a sage-green cloth. More playing cards, three more white clay pipes, a tall glass of beer, a clay pot, and a white jug with a narrow silver lid sit on the table. A sack and perhaps a firearm hang on the wall to the left of the arched window, which is set in the thick gray wall. The floor is wood plank, and the space behind the man falls into shadow but appears to be empty. The artist signed the painting as if he had inscribed his name on the side of the chair with the cloak: “FvMieris.”
Read the visual description

A pale-skinned, bearded man sits at a table set in front of a window and smokes a pipe in this vertical painting. Light pours in from the window and leaves much of the room behind the man in deep shadow. The man’s body is angled to our left, and he rests his right elbow, also to our left, on the table and looks steadily at us. The man has a round face with rosy cheeks and a copper-red beard. His dark, gold-edged hat rolls back away from his face, creating an upward flounce. His cream-white, lace-edged collar lies across his shoulders over a gorget, the piece of silver armor that encircles the neck and comes to a point over the chest. His plum-purple sleeveless jacket and loose, knee-length britches have a sheen. Voluminous white sleeves are covered with strips of black and golden yellow fabric, and yellow fabric flares like a mini cape behind the sleeve we see. The man wears a tawny-brown glove on his left hand, to our right. That hand rests on his hip with the palm facing out. He holds the long, white clay pipe to his lips with his other ungloved hand. A wisp of smoke rises from a burning ember at the end of the pipe. The man’s pants are edged with gold around the bottom hem, which fall loosely around teal-green stockings. His slouchy black boots have square toes, and the tops fall down to reveal crimson-red undersides. A brass band wraps across the arch of the foot closer to us, and a star-shaped spur projects off the back. The man sits on a three-legged stool with a triangular seat. More armor, a horn, and a banner with fringed edges lie in a heap in the bottom right corner of the painting. To the left, a playing card, a seven of hearts, lies face up near a second chair, this one wood with a seat upholstered in iron gray. A forest-green cloak edged with gold fringe is draped over the high back of that seat, and a staff with a metal finial leans against the cloak. The seat and stool face a table mostly covered with a sage-green cloth. More playing cards, three more white clay pipes, a tall glass of beer, a clay pot, and a white jug with a narrow silver lid sit on the table. A sack and perhaps a firearm hang on the wall to the left of the arched window, which is set in the thick gray wall. The floor is wood plank, and the space behind the man falls into shadow but appears to be empty. The artist signed the painting as if he had inscribed his name on the side of the chair with the cloak: “FvMieris.”

National Gallery of Art · Painting

A Soldier Smoking a Pipe

Frans van Mieris

Date
c. 1657/1658
Medium
oil on panel
Dimensions
overall: 32.4 × 25.4 cm (12 3/4 × 10 in.)
Classification
Painting
Accession number
2016.10.1
Credit line
The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund
Time span
1651 to 1700
Department
CNE-B
Original NGA record Wikidata

Subjects and terms

  • painted surface
  • Baroque
  • Acquired after launch of Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century (NGA Online Editions)
  • Dutch
  • smoking
  • genre
  • Smoking
Provenance

Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony [1670-1733, also King Augustus II of Poland], Dresden;[1] by descent through the Kings of Saxony to the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden;[2] deaccessioned and exchanged 1927 with (Galerie Van Diemen, Berlin);[3] sold 20 October 1927 to August Neuerburg [1884-1944], Hamburg;[4] by descent in the Neuerburg family; (sale, Sotheby's, London, 9 July 2008, no. 28); (Richard Green, London) and (Johnny Van Haeften Ltd., London); sold 2008 to private collection, England; purchased April 2016 through (Johnny Van Haeften, London) by NGA. [1] The painting arrived at the NGA in a frame that bears the cypher of Augustus the Strong. During the reign of his son and successor, Augustus III (1696–1763), paintings from this collection were given gilt frames fitted with glass-fronted doors for protection. The doors could be opened with a key, which enabled the elector and his privileged guests to the study the paintings closely. In the 1880 and 1912 catalogues of the Royal Picture Gallery in Dresden, the painting is noted as being in the 1722 inventory of the collection. [2] In late 19th and early 20th century catalogues of the royal collection (1880, 1896, 1902, 1905, 1912), the painting has either or both the numbers 1588 and 1747, and is noted as being number 1553 in the 1753 inventory prepared by Pietro Guarienti. In 1901, the painting was hanging in Room 16 of the right wing, first floor of the Zwinger. [3] The Van Mieris and other paintings from the Dresden collection were exchanged in return for Giambattista Tiepolo's _Triumph of Amphitrite_. [4] Sotheby's London office located a copy of Galerie van Diemen's 1927 sales invoice for the painting, which gives Neuerburg's address as Elbchaussee 77 in Blankenese/Hamburg, and is annotated with a note indicating the bill was paid in early 1928. A painting by Rubens in Sotheby's sale of old masters on 6 July 2016 in London was also previously owned by August Neuerburg. The history of ownership section of the catalogue note for the painting (lot number 7) includes this description of the collector: "August Neuerburg was a scion of a dynasty of tobacco merchants, originally from the village of Wittlich, but established in Cologne by the mid-nineteenth century, whence branches and factories were opened all over Germany. The firm established a raw tobacco warehouse in Hamburg in the early 1920s, and August settled there, buying a house at Elbchaussee 77 in the former riverside village of Blankenese, by then a suburb of Hamburg. He seems to have bought most of his pictures in a burst of activity within a remarkably short period of time between 1927 and 1930."

Inscription

on the side of the chair: FvMieris

NGA object ID 205573. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.