“ In all these we find the same brilliant style and vigorous work, a solid impasto, and a crisp, sparkling touch. His first manner seems to have been influenced by the pleiad of painters circling round Rembrandt, a school which lost favour in Holland in the last quarter of the century. During the final ten or twelve years of his life Van der Meer adopted a second manner. We now find his painting smooth and thin, and his colours paler and softer. Instead of masculine vigour we have refined delicacy and subtlety, but in both styles beauty of tone and perfect harmony are conspicuous. ”

“ The Dresden picture of a “Woman and Soldier,” with other two figures, is painted with remarkable power and boldness, with great command over the resources of colour, and with wonderful expression of life. ”

“ Van der Meer’s authentic pictures in public and private collections amount to about thirty. There is but one in the Louvre, the “Lace Maker”; Dresden has the two aforementioned, while Berlin has three, all acquired in the Suermondt collection, and the Czernin Gallery of Vienna is fortunate in possessing a fine picture, believed to represent the artist in his studio. In the Arenberg Gallery at Brussels there is a remarkable head of a girl, half the size of life, which seems to be intermediate between his two styles. ”