Frans van Mieris the Elder, 'Self Portrait of the Artist, with a Cittern', 1674

Frans van Mieris painted this tiny self portrait three days before he turned 39 in 1674. By this time, he was a highly successful artist in his home city of Leiden. His work was bought, sometimes for vast sums, by the wealthy of the city but also by nobility from abroad, including the Medici, the ruling family of Florence.

Perhaps for this reason, van Mieris chose to show himself in the Italian version of the costume of one of the characters from the commedia dell'arte that originated in Italy. This was, and still is, a rumbustious form of physical theatre, in which the actors sing, mime, dance, play music, tell bawdy jokes, perform acrobatic feats and rough and often rude knock about. Originally played in the streets, by the seventeenth century it had evolved in two ways: one form continued as popular street theatre, the other became a more sophisticated version performed in private venues. In van Mieris’s Dutch Republic, this would have been a Chamber of Rhetoric – precursors of theatres – where plays of all kinds were put on and poetry recited. Comedies were the preferred form of drama and judging by van Mieris’s expression in the picture, one he would have enjoyed too.

Van Mieris may or may not have acted in the commedia himself, but his gorgeous costume in this painting would perhaps align him with the more refined version. His painting technique was certainly refined, so meticulous that brushmarks in his pictures are almost universally invisible. The assured painting of the elegant velvet cloak gleaming in the light contrasts with the delicate handling of the lace collar and with the white fabric and brocade ribbons of his huge puffball sleeves. The costume and his nonchalant pose, leaning on a balustrade looking back at us to invite us to share his fun, appear to be that of Ottavio, one of the lovers in the commedia. Van Mieris plays the cittern – a stringed instrument from medieval times – though the character is more often shown playing a flute or a guitar. Ottavio would have used these to serenade the woman he loved.

Ottavio’s feathered hat is precariously balanced on the balustrade, adding to the whimsical, informal nature of the picture. Next to it is a glass, sparkling in the light, delicate and fragile, painted with great skill, and half full – for van Mieris, a wine glass would never have been half empty. There are several accounts of his heavy drinking, and in spite of the huge amounts he earned in his lifetime, he left very little when he died. He had no problem with showing his face ageing, the cheeks becoming slack and, in other portraits, red nosed and flushed. Popular and gregarious, he painted himself in many guises: in Turkish costume, as a cavalier, in a velvet hat with a twirly handlebar moustache and, most tellingly, as a jolly drunkard – mostly smiling and always with laughing eyes, inviting us to share his appetite for life.