Jan Miel

Jan Miel[1] (1599 in Beveren-Waas – 1663 in Turin)

was a Flemish painter and engraver who was active in
Italy. He initially formed part of the circle of Dutch and
Flemish genre painters in Rome who are referred to as
the 'Bamboccianti' and were known for their scenes
depicting the lower classes in Rome. He later developed
away from the Bamboccianti style and painted history
subjects in a classicising style.

He collaborated with many artists in Rome and worked

in the latter part of his career in Turin as the court
painter of Charles Emanuel II, the Duke of Savoy.[2]

Contents Sine Cerere et Baccho Friget Venus

Life
Work
General
Collaborations
Later evolution
Prints
References
External links

Life
Jan Miel was probably born in Beveren-Waas, but Antwerp and 's-Hertogenbosch have also been suggested
as possible birthplaces. There is no information on his training but it is assumed that it took place in
Antwerp.[3] The seventeenth century Italian biographer Giovanni Battista Passeri refers to a training by
Anthony van Dyck in Flanders but there is no independent evidence for this statement.[4]

Miel's stay in Rome in the period from 1636 to 1658 is documented, but it is possible that he was already
there from 1633.[5] In Rome he became a member of the Bentvueghels, an association of mainly Dutch and
Flemish artists working in Rome. It was customary for the Bentvueghels to adopt an appealing nickname,
the so-called 'bent name'. For Miel two different bent names are documented: Bieco (which means squint in
Italian) and Honingh-Bie (which means honey bee and is derived from the surname 'Miele' by which he was
known in Italy and which means 'honey' in Italian).[3]

In Rome he also became linked to the circle of genre painters whose work was influenced by the Dutch
genre painter Pieter van Laer and were referred to as 'Bamboccianti'. The Bamboccianti were mainly Dutch
and Flemish artists working in Rome who mostly produced small cabinet paintings or prints of the everyday
life of the lower classes in Rome and the surrounding countryside. Jan Miel was a vital force in the
development of this new tradition in Rome.[5]
 Miel became in 1648 the first northern artist to be admitted to
the Accademia di San Luca, a prestigious association of leading
artists in Rome. A stay of Miel in Northern Italy of around 1654
is documented. From 1658 until his death he resided in Turin,
where he was appointed court painter of Charles Emanuel II,
the Duke of Savoy.[2]

Work

General

Boy playing a flute

Miel’s first dated paintings from the 1630s already show

the influence of Pieter van Laer and the Bamboccianti in
that they depict low-class subjects engaged in their
normal business or at play. Popular subjects included
morra players, gamblers, village dances, quacks, barbers,
cobblers, itinerant musicians and actors, etc. Examples of
Charlatan
his early work in this genre include The bowls players
(Louvre) and The cobbler (Musée des Beaux-Arts et
d'archéologie de Besançon), both produced in 1633. In this period he reworked and copied paintings by van
Laer.[2]

An example of a work in this so-called 'bambocciate' style is the Charlatan (Hermitage Museum, 1650s).
The composition has traditionally been interpreted as depicting an itinerant medicine peddler with his
assistants, who is demonstrating to a crowd of boorish onlookers the beneficial effects of his wares. The
motif of quacks was a common feature of Flemish and Dutch genre painting from the 16th century
onwards.[6] In the 16th-century Jan Sanders van Hemessen's The Surgeon had depicted a quack surgeon
pretending to remove with a knife from a patient's open skull the so-called 'stone of madness'.[7]
Seventeenth-century genre painting regularly returned to the theme as can be seen in the works of Adriaen
Brouwer, Jan Steen and David Teniers the Younger. The main personages in the Hermitage painting are
shown dressed as characters of the commedia dell'arte: the quack wears the mask and costume of Il Dottore
while the guitar player has the costume of a Zanni (madcap servant). Jan Miel painted other works using
characters from the commedia dell'arte such as Carnival in Rome (Prado Museum, 1653) and The Actors'
Rehearsal (Zingone collection, Rome).[8]

During the 1640s and 1650s Miel began, just like Michelangelo Cerquozzi, to expand the scope of
bambocciate paintings by paying less attention to the surrounding landscape and instead stressing the
anecdotal aspects of city and country life. These works were repeatedly used as a model by the
Bamboccianti in the second half of the century and by the genre painters working in Rome during the early
18th century.[2]

Miel made his most original contribution to genre painting through his paintings of carnival scenes. An
example is the Carnival in the Piazza Colonna (Wadsworth Atheneum, 1645). The painting provides a
powerful representation of the fury of carnival. As is common in Miel's 'bambocciate' compositions, noble
and common people appear in the same scene: the Roman nobility mounted on horseback is dossed out in
 elegant costumes while the common people
crowd the entire square engaging in
merrymaking, panhandling, the game of morra
and other lowly activities. A commedia dell'arte
troupe standing on a cart also participates in the
revelry. The merrymaking takes place on the last
day of Carnival when the excitement has
reached its peak. As Carnival also announces
the beginning of spring, an effigy of winter is
dangling from the gallows on the left.[9]
Carnival in the Piazza Colonna

Collaborations

Miel often collaborated with other artists as was the custom at the time. He painted the staffage for the
vedute (cityscapes or other views) by Viviano Codazzi and Alessandro Salucci and the landscapes of
Gaspard Dughet and Angeluccio.[2]

Jan Miel worked particularly closely with Alessandro

Salucci, an important innovator of veduta painting.
Salucci produced many capricci, which often
incorporated antique Roman monuments in imaginary
environments. The collaboration between the two artists
commenced in 1635 and ended when Miel left Rome for
Turin in 1658 to work at the court of Charles Emmanuel
II, Duke of Savoy. The only dated example of the two
artists' collaborative efforts is an Imaginary Seaport
(Cincinnati Art Museum), which is dated to 1656.[10]
Miel excelled in depicting stories, which filled up the
open spaces in Salucci's vedute. Miel often included
The Arch of Constantine, with Alessandro Salucci multiple anecdotal scenes in a single work. This is
evident in An architectural capriccio with an ionic
portico, a fountain, a two story loggia, a Gothic palace
and figures on a quay (Christie's, Sale 1708, Lot 56). This composition depicts various groups of people
acting independently of each other: there are an elegant couple on the lower left on the stairs, figures at the
well next to them and card players on the steps in the distance.[11] Miel's figures were typically farmers,
beggars, morra players, innkeepers and porters often mixed with elegantly dressed men and women, who
provided a rich flavor of Roman daily life to the architectural setting created by Salucci.[12]

There is evidence that in 1641, Jan Miel was documented in the studio of Andrea Sacchi. This collaboration
is rather exceptional since Sacchi was an important critic of the Bambocciante style of which Miel was an
important representative. This stay in Sacchi's studio may have been instrumental in the artist's evolutions
towards the "gran maniera" of painting.[13] Miel worked with Andrea Sacchi on the painting Urban VIII
visits the Church of the Gesù (Galleria Barberini, Rome, 1641).[14] It is believed that Sacchi only executed a
small portion of the painting himself and that Jan Miel executed the foreground figures after drawings by
Sacchi.[15]

Old auction catalogues mentioned that Miel contributed the staffage to the landscapes of Claude Lorrain
during his stay in Rome, but it has not been possible to attribute the human figures in Lorrain's works to
Miel.[3]

Later evolution
Around 1650 he began to paint less bambocciate and to
concentrate on religious paintings for Roman churches
executed in a large format. There are a number of works
from the 1650s in this more dignified style such as an
altarpiece of The Madonna and Child with Saints in the
Duomo di Santa Maria della Scala in Chieri dating from
1651. At the same time, Miel also created small
paintings with religious subjects.[2] These works were
commissioned by eminent patrons from Rome such as
the Barberini family. His work also showed a tendency
towards classicism as is evidenced by his Dido and
Aeneas (musée des beaux-arts de Cambrai).[16]
Actors from the Commedia dell’Arte on a Wagon in
a Town Square
After moving to Turin in 1658 he decorated the royal
hunting lodge at Venaria Reale with large-scale hunting
scenes (portions of which are now lost). He painted
more and more history paintings which demonstrate an
intensification of the classical tendencies already present in the
religious paintings of the 1650s. Miel also began to study and copy
the works of Raphael and Annibale Carracci, just as he had copied
the works of Pieter van Laer at the beginning of his career.[2]

Prints

Miel was also a skilled engraver. He designed the frontispiece for La

povertà contenta (Rome, 1650) of Daniello Bartoli and the
illustrations for De bello belgico (Rome, 1647) of Famiano Strada.[2]

References
1. Name variations: 'Jan Miele', 'Jan Bicke', 'Jan Bike',
'Cavaliere Giovanni Miele', 'Cavaliere Giovanni Milo',
'Cavaliere Giovanni della Vita', 'Petit Jean'; nicknames: The Veneration of St. Lambert
'Bieco' en 'Honingh-bie'
2. Ludovica Trezzani. "Miel, Jan." Grove Art Online. Oxford
Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 23 April 2016
3. Jan Miel (http://explore.rkd.nl/explore/artists/56007) at the
Netherlands Institute for Art History (in Dutch)
4. Giovanni Miele (https://books.google.com/books?id=U_Y9
AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA249&dq=Luigi+Gentile&hl=it&ei=SYKG
TOKwEpGCswbFodWaBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=resu
lt&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=miele
&f=false) in: Giovanni Battista Passeri, Vite the pittori,
scultori ed architetti che anno lavorato in Roma, Roma,
1772, page 224
5. Jan Miel (http://www.hadrianus.it/people/jan-miel) Archived
(https://web.archive.org/web/20150924024738/http://www.
hadrianus.it/people/jan-miel) 24 September 2015 at the
Wayback Machine on Hadrian
 6. Genre Painting in Northern Europe (http://www.metmuseu
m.org/toah/hd/gnrn/hd_gnrn.htm) at the Metropolitan
Museum of Fine Arts
7. 'The Surgeon (https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-colle
ction/online-gallery/on-line-gallery/obra/the-surgeon) at the
Prado Museum
8. Jan Miel, Charlatan (http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wp
s/portal/hermitage/digital-collection/01.+Paintings/30580/?l
ng=nl) at the Hermitage
9. Linda Maynard Powell, Feasts, Fairs and Festivals: Mirrors
of Renaissance Society (http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curricul
um/units/1986/3/86.03.06.x.html)
10. Alessandro Salucci (Florence 1590- Rome c. 1660), A
Seaport with Figures (https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/co
llection/404916/a-seaport-with-figures) at the Royal
Collection
11. Alessandro Salucci (Florence 1590-1655/60 Rome) and
Jan Miel (Beveren-Waes 1599-1664 Turin), An
architectural capriccio with an ionic portico, a fountain, a
two story loggia, a Gothic palace and figures on a quay (ht
tp://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot/alessandro-salucci-and-
jan-miel-an-4794182-details.aspx?pos=1&intObjectID=479
4182&sid=&page=5&lid=1) at Christie's
12. Annalia Delneri, Andrea Emiliani, Anna Orlando,
Francesco Petrucci, Mary Newcome Schleier, Angela
Tecce, Old Masters 2011: Capolavori da prestigiose
collezioni europee per la mostra Tefaaf Maastricht 2011 -
Galleria Cesare Lampronti, Gangemi Editore spa, 2011, p.
17
13. Jan Miel, Without Ceres or Bacchus, Venus would freeze
(http://www.sothebys.com/fr/auctions/ecatalogue/2016/ma
ster-paintings-n09515/lot.52.html) at Sotheby's
14. The painting Urban VIII visits the Church of the Gesù in
the Galleria Barberini in Rome (http://galleriabarberini.beni
culturali.it/index.php?it/194/catalogo/catalogo_barberini/61
4)
15. Kelli Peduzzi, The Katalan Collection of Italian Drawings:
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College,
Poughkeepsie, New York, Frances Lehman Loeb Art
Center, Vassar College, 1 Mar 1995, p. 106
16. J. J. P. P., Miel, Jan van Bike. Il Cavaliere Gioo (https://ww
w.museodelprado.es/aprende/enciclopedia/voz/miel-jan-va
n-bike-il-cavaliere-gioo/c6e085f1-909e-42e5-9f87-bf40a0c
839da?searchid=a6b8d68d-c037-ec2c-69a7-38378bc79f5
3) at the Prado

External links
Media related to Jan Miel at Wikimedia Commons
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jan_Miel&oldid=938451869"

This page was last edited on 31 January 2020, at 07:59 (UTC).

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