Since the 1903 catalogue of the Rijksmuseum’s permanent collection, the Van Mierevelt signature on this bust-length portrait of a man has been doubted.2 Although this signature is painted wet in wet, the printed lower-case lettering does not conform to the two types of signature Van Mierevelt used: either printed capital letters or written upper and lower-case letters. The painting’s loose execution, especially the many lines in the face, and the use of grey paint here, which appears green, cannot be compared to Van Mierevelt’s style, not even that of his later, looser years. The painting is therefore probably a copy after a prototype by Van Mierevelt that is no longer extant. Based on the collar, that prototype would have been executed some time between 1625 and the artist’s death in 1641. There is at least one other copy, or studio replica of the same prototype.3 Jonathan Bikker, 2007 See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 204.