MICHAEL JANSEN, an eminent portrait-painter, was the son of a goldsmith, and was born at Delft in 1568. While a pupil of Blocklandt, he made such rapid progress that he soon rivalled his master. His first works were altar-pieces for some of the churches in his native town. In a short time, however, he turned to the more lucrative vocation of painting portraits, and speedily rose into repute. He was often summoned from his settled residence at Delft to the Hague, to paint the princes of the House of Nassau. The Archduke Albert conferred upon him a considerable pension. In 1625 he was invited to England by Charles I., and would have complied with the request had not the plague been then raging in London. Meanwhile Mirevelt must have been amassing a fair fortune, since the very smallest of his numerous works was sold for no less than 150 florins. He died at Delft in 1641, after he had executed, according to Sandrart, nearly ten thousand portraits. "The portraits of Mirevelt," says Stanley in his Dutch and Flemish Painters, "are well drawn, full of expression, solidly coloured, and with a proper degree of finishing without the appearance of labour." Mirevelt's son Peter possessed some merit as a portrait-painter.