Anton Mirou

Antoine, or Anton Mirou (1578 – 1621/1627), was a Flemish Baroque landscape painter of the Frankenthal school. He is known for his wooded and rocky landscapes and landscapes with populated villages. He was also a topographical draftsman whose views were widely disseminated through prints.

Life

Anton Mirou was born in Antwerp where he was baptized on 4 May 1578 in the Cathedral of Our Lady. His father, Henricus Mirou, was an apothecary. The family must have been Protestant as they left Antwerp in 1586 after the Fall of Antwerp.

On stylistic grounds it is believed that Mirou trained in Frankenthal under the prominent Flemish landscape artist Gillis van Coninxloo who resided there from 1588 to 1595. Another Flemish painter active in Germany called Hendrik Gijsmans was possibly also his teacher.

A majority of Mirou's landscapes are distinguished from those of his contemporaries by the presence of richly dressed figures that populate the woody paths. These figures often seem ill matched with their surroundings. In the River landscape with elegant figures on a path (an oil on copper offered at Sotheby's London on 3 July 2013) a magnificently dressed young lady is serenaded by a lute-playing gentleman while they stroll on a path along which there are several beggars. Many of these drawings invite comparison with the Small Landscapes series, engraved and published in Antwerp between 1559 and 1561 by Hieronymus Cock.

Mirou's works are held in the Prado, the Rijksmuseum, the Szépművészeti Múzeum, the Bavarian State Painting Collections, the National Gallery Prague, and the Historical Museum of the Pfalz.