Melder learned from Rosalba

In the early eighteenth century dutch artist Gerard Melder  obtained some miniatures of the then famous Venetian artist Rosalba Carriera.
By meticulously copying those small works he learned the technique, and began a successful series of mini copies of famous Dutch seventeenth-century works of Gerard Dou and others. The miniature fashion was indebted to the rise of snuff in the eighteenth century, because of the lid decorations of snuff boxes. But sometimes Melder made landscapes like this one (17 x 24 cm). For sale at Jenschke Van Vliet, Berlin.