Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/307

Rh M I G M I G 289 greenery, and adorned with bas-reliefs within which figures are seen to the waist, his model is certainly Gerard Dow. It has been said that he possessed some of the humour of Jan Steen, who was his friend, but the only approach to humour in any of his works is the quaint attitude and look of a tinker in a picture at Dresden, who glances know ingly at a worn copper kettle which a maid asks him to mend. It is a question whether Houbraken has truly recorded this master s birthday. One of his best-known pieces, a party of ladies and gentlsmen at an oyster luncheon in the hermitage at St Petersburg, bears the date of 1650. Celebrated alike for composition and finish, it would prove that Mieris had reached his prime at the age of fifteen. Another beautiful example, the Doctor Feeling a Lady s Pulse in the gallery of Vienna, is dated 1656 ; and Waagen, in one of his critical essays, justly observes that it is a remarkable production for a youth of twenty- one. In 1657 Mieris was married at Leyden in the pre sence of Jan Potheuck, a painter, and this is the earliest written record of his existence on which we can implicitly rely. Of the numerous panels known to the writer of these lines, twenty-nine at least are dated, the latest being an allegory, long in the Ruhl collection at Cologne, illustrating the kindred vices of drinking, smoking, and dicing, in the year 1680. Mieris had numerous and distinguished patrons. He received valuable commissions from Archduke Leopold, the elector-palatine, and Cosmo III., grand-duke of Tuscany. His practice was large and lucrative, but never engendered in him either carelessness or neglect. If there be a differ ence between the painter s earlier and later work, it is that the former was clearer and more delicate in flesh, whilst the latter was often darker and more livid in the shadows. When he died his clients naturally went over to his son Willem, who in turn bequeathed his painting-room to his son Frans. But neither Willem nor Frans the younger equalled Frans the elder. II. WILLEM VAN MIERIS (1662-1747), son of Frans. His works are extremely numerous, being partly imita tions of the paternal subjects, or mythological episodes, which Frans habitually avoided. In no case did he come near the excellence of his sire. III. FRANS VAN MIERIS the younger (1689-1763) also lived on the traditions of his grandfather s painting-room. The pictures of all the generations of the Mieris family were suc cessfully imitated by A. D. Snaphaan, who lived at Leipsic and was patronized by the court of Anhalt-Dessau. To those who would study his deceptive form of art a visit to the collection of Wb rlitz near Dessau may afford instruction. MIGNARD, PIERRE (1610-1695), called to distinguish him from his brother Nicholas Le Roniain, was the chief French portrait-painter of the 17th century. He was born at Troyes in 1610, and came of a family of painters. In 1630 he left the studio of Simon Vouet for Italy, where he spent twenty-two years, and made a reputation which brought him a summons to Paris. Successful with his portrait of the king, and in favour with the court, Mignard pitted himself against Le Brun, declined to enter the Academy of which he was the head, and made himself the centre of opposition to its authority. The history of this struggle is most important, because it was identical, as long as it lasted, with that between the old guilds of France and the new body which Colbert, for political reasons, was determined to support. Shut out, in spite of the deserved success of his decorations of the cupola of Val de Grace (1664), from any great share in those public works the control of which was the attribute of the new Academy, Mignard was chiefly active in portraiture. Turenne, Bossuet, Maintenon (Louvre), LaValliere, Sevign6, Montespan, Descartes (Castle Howard), all the beauties and celebrities of his day, sat to him. His readiness and skill, his happy instinct for grace of arrangement, atoned for want of originality and real power. With the death of Le Brun (1690) the situation changed; Mignard deserted his allies, and succeeded to all the posts held by his opponent. These late honours he did not long enjoy; in 1695 he died whilst about to commence work on the cupola of the Invalides. His best compositions have been en graved by Audran, Edelinck, Masson, Poilly, and others. MIGNONETTE, or MIGNONNETTE (i.e., &quot;little dar ling&quot;), the name given to a popular garden flower, the Reseda odorata of botanists, a &quot; fragrant weed,&quot; as Cowper calls it, highly esteemed for its delicate but delicious perfume. The mignonette is generally regarded as being of annual duration, and is a plant of diffuse decumbent twiggy habit, scarcely reaching a foot in height, clothed with bluntish lanceolate entire or three-lobed leaves, and bearing longish spikes technically racemes of rather insignificant flowers at the ends of the numerous branches and branchlets. The plant thus naturally assumes the form of a low dense mass of soft green foliage studded over freely with the racemes of flowers, the latter unobtrusive and likely to be overlooked until their diffused fragrance compels attention. The native country of the original or typical mignonette has sometimes been considered doubtful, but according to the best and latest authorities it has been gathered wild on the North African coast near Algiers, in Egypt, and in Syria. As to its introduction, a MS. note in the library of Sir Joseph Banks records that it was sent to England from Paris in 1742 ; and ten years later it appears to have been sent from Leyden to Philip Miller at Chelsea. Though originally a slender and rather straggling plant, there are now some improved garden varieties in which the growth is more compact and vigorous, and the inflorescence bolder, though the odour is perhaps less penetrating. The small six-petalled flowers are somewhat curious in structure : the two upper petals are larger, concave, and furnished at the back with a tuft of club-shaped filaments, which gives them the appearance of being deeply incised, while the two lowest petals are much smaller and undivided ; the most conspicuous part consists of the anthers, which are numerous and of a brownish red, giving the tone of colour to the inflorescence. In a new variety named Golden Queen the anthers have a decided tint of orange-yellow, which imparts a brighter golden hue to the plants when in blossom. A handsome proliferous or double-flowered variety has also been obtained, which is likely to be a very useful decorative plant, though only to be propagated by cuttings ; the double white flowers grow in large massive panicles (proliferous racemes), and are equally fragrant with those of the ordinary forms. What is called tree mignonette in gardens is due to the skill of the cultivator. Though practically a British annual, as already noted, since it flowers abundantly the first season, and is utterly destroyed by the autumnal frosts, and though recorded as being annual in its native habitat by Desfontaines in the Flora Atlantica, the mignonette, like many other plants treated in England as annuals, will continue to grow on if kept in a suitable temperature. Moreover, the life of certain plants of this semiannual character may be prolonged into a second season if their flowering and seeding are&quot; persistently prevented. In applying these facts to the pro duction of tree mignonette, the gardener grows on the young plants under glass, and prevents their flowering by nipping off the blooming tips of the shoots, so that they continue their vegetative growth into the second season. The young plants are at first sup ported in an erect position, the laterals being removed so as to secure clean upright stems, and then at the height of one or two feet or more, as may be desired, a head of branches is encouraged to develop itself. In this way very large plants can be produced. For ordinary purposes, however, other plans are adopted. In the open borders of the flower garden mignonette is usually sown in spring, and in great part takes care of itself ; but, being a favourite either for window or balcony culture, and on account of its fragrance a welcome inmate of town conservatories, it is also very extensively XVI. - 37