George van der Mijn, Dutch painter, part of a family of artists, also active in England. Heroman van der Mijn was a portrait and still-life painter of some distinction, although his work shows little originality. His sister Agatha van der Mijn (active early 18th century) painted similar subjects and accompanied her brother to England shortly after 1721. Six of Heroman's children became painters: his daughter Cornelia van der Mijn (b. 1710) and his sons Gerard van der Mijn (b. 1706), Andreas van der Mijn (b. ?1714), Frans van der Mijn (1719-93), George van der Mijn and Robert van der Mijn (b. 1724), of whom only Frans and George established important reputations. Frans became an accomplished and fashionable portrait painter in Amsterdam and London; George excelled both his father and brother in originality and may be regarded as one of the best Dutch portrait painters of the 18th century.
George van der Mijn, like his elder brother Frans, studied with his father, after whose death he became a pupil of Frans. He moved to Amsterdam with Frans and remained there until his death. Little survives of George van der Mijn's early work. His excellent portraits of Cornelis Ploos van Amstel and Elisabeth Troost (The Hague, Mauritshuis) may be early and may date from 1748, as was once thought, or could have been painted as late as 1758. The majority of his 15 or so remaining paintings date from 1757–63.
Besides individual portraits, he produced some of the best examples of the Dutch conversation piece of the 18th century, including two group portraits, both from 1763: the Hasselaer Family (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) and the Van Sypesteyn Children (Loosdrecht, Kasteel-Museum Sypesteyn). He also made a number of miniatures, pastels and drawings. In 1761, the year of his marriage, he painted the ceiling of an Amsterdam patrician's house. His early death in 1763 accounts for the small size of his oeuvre.
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