So far in this study, the examples of Dou and Ter Borch have illustrated how certain seventeenth-century artists, working under specific cultural and economic conditions, underscored their creative personas through various practices of repetition. Dou's niche picture, which exists in numerous variations, became a signature composition that served as a vehicle for exhibiting his prized fine technique. Ter Borch rearranges stock figures from established pictorial subjects in new combinations, generating a new, distinctive kind of “high-life” genre painting. This chapter explores a different form of strategic repetition, namely, creative—and eristic—imitation. My focus is on Frans van Mieris the Elder, a younger artist who appropriated from, and transformed, the novel imagery and effects found in the works of Dou and Ter Borch. Van Mieris became one of the most prominent artists of his generation, earning the reputation of an innovator of the “elegant modern” mode of genre painting. I have argued that painters had to develop distinctive authorial identities to appeal to the learned collectors in the privileged segments of the market. If the liefhebbers were constantly seeking novelty and uniqueness for the purposes of defining their group identity, what was the appeal of the citations and borrowings in paintings by Van Mieris? The perception of the intertwined concepts of invention and imitation in early modern Europe will be the starting point for addressing this question.

This chapter begins with an examination of Van Mieris's adaptations and quotations through the lens of contemporary theories of imitation and invention. The Cloth Shop (Plate 10), in particular, not only demonstrates the painter's melding and transformation of fashionable artistic models, but it also, as I shall argue, challenges the viewer to compare the new creation to its sources. That Dutch artists studied and borrowed from one another is certainly no surprise. Many studies have analyzed the transmission of technical, stylistic, and thematic knowledge in terms of the influence of a prominent artist. Dou, for instance, attracted a group of students and followers in Leiden, while Ter Borch's novel high-life interior scenes inspired other artists to explore similar subjects. Scholars have also considered commercial motivations behind the adoption of successful artistic subjects or production practices. According to Montias's concept of innovation, producers are compelled by financial necessity to adopt a formula that has found success in the market.