Gabriel Metsu

Dutch, 1629 - 1667

Gabriel Metsu was born in Leiden sometime between November 27 and mid-December 1629, about eight months after the death of his father, the Flemish painter Jacques Metsue. In 1644, when fifteen-year-old Gabriel Metsu joined a semiformal group of local artists, he entered the membership rolls as a “painter.” Six days after the establishment of Leiden’s Saint Luke’s Guild in 1648, Metsu paid his membership dues as an independent master. With the exception of short absences in the early 1650s, he remained in Leiden until at least 1654, moving to Amsterdam the following year.[1] On April 12, 1658, he married Isabella de Wolff, a relative of the Haarlem classicist painter Pieter de Grebber (c. 1600–1652/1653). In January of the next year, Metsu became an official citizen of Amsterdam, where he died in 1667 at the young age of thirty-eight.

It has often been assumed that Metsu must have studied with Dou, Gerrit, Leiden’s leading genre painter during the 1640s. This assumption may well be correct but it is not without problems, given that early works from Metsu’s Leiden period tend to be executed in a fairly broad and fluid manner, far removed from the meticulously crafted, small-scale paintings of Dou and the other Leiden fijnschilders, such as Mieris, Frans van. Rather than Dou, Metsu may initially have studied under the history painter Anthonie Claesz de Grebber (c. 1622–1691), who was related to Pieter de Grebber and, like Metsu, was also Catholic. Strong links with the work of the Utrecht painter Nicolaus Knüpfer (c. 1603–1655), further suggest that Metsu apprenticed with this master in the early 1650s. Also influential for Metsu’s early work was another master from Utrecht, the Italianate landscape painter Jan Baptist Weenix (1621–1660/1661).[2]

Metsu’s stylistic and thematic adaptability suggests that he understood the changing character of the art market. For example, after he moved to Amsterdam he began to paint genre scenes that featured upper-class domestic situations. He also began to paint with greater detail and with a refinement associated with Leiden masters. In Amsterdam he also responded to the thematic and stylistic innovations of Vermeer, Johannes, Borch the Younger, Gerard ter, and Hooch, Pieter de.

Metsu’s facile brushwork and his engaging narrative scenes were highly regarded during his own time, but the height of his fame came in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when he was viewed as one of the supreme Dutch masters of the seventeenth century. His paintings were sold for enormous sums of money, and, because of Metsu’s fame, no fewer than three of Vermeer’s paintings were atrributed to him, among them the National Gallery’s Woman Holding a Balance.

In addition to his genre scenes, Metsu painted a few depictions of outdoor markets, religious scenes, portraits, and still lifes. The genre and portrait painter Michiel van Musscher (1645–1705) was his only known pupil.

 

 

[1] Adriaan E. Waiboer, “Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667): Life and Work,” PhD diss. (New York University, 2007), 45–57.

[2] Adriaan E. Waiboer, “Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667): Life and Work,” PhD diss. (New York University, 2007), 78–90.

 

 

Explore Selected Works

A young, smiling man bursts through the door of a dimly lit bedroom occupied by three women in this vertical painting. All four people have pale skin. The arched door is to our right and the man faces our left with his arms spread wide. He leans slightly forward as he holds the wide brim of his hat out by his left side, to our right. Shoulder-length chestnut-brown hair frames his face, and he wears a velvety brown jacket trimmed with tan stripes and pompoms down the front and along the sleeve we can see. A broad sash crosses his chest and tassels hang from his wide, white collar. Between us and him, a wooden chair is draped with a crimson-red cloak trimmed with white fur and bands of gold. A pewter pitcher and candlestick rest on the pine floor in front of it, near the lower right corner of the painting. The man is stopped at the door by a woman wearing a sable-brown gown with a tight-fitting bodice and a white cap on the back of her head. Her body faces the man as she leans toward him with her outstretched right hand resting on his shoulder, and she turns her smiling face back over her shoulder. Light from an open window on the left illuminates the woman in the center, who steps down from a bed enclosed by forest-green, velvet curtains trimmed with gold fringe and tassels. The curtains are parted behind her to reveal white pillows. She wears a long, gleaming white satin skirt topped by a tight-fitting coral-red bodice stitched with thin lines of gold. A white neckerchief covers her shoulders and is partially tucked into the bodice. Her head is covered by a white kerchief knotted under her chin. Her body faces us with one foot on a step stool, and the other foot reaches down to a gold and red shoe on the floor. Its mate lies nearby, pointing away from us. Her head is turned to our right to look at the man. She has a thin face with a high forehead, and small mouth is closed or pursed. Closest to us and near the lower left corner of the painting, the third woman sits alongside a small table under the open window. She wears a long, pine-green jacket trimmed with white fur over a brown skirt. Her auburn hair is partially coiled around her head, while some locks fall in bunched curls. She sits facing our right in profile with her back to the window, so her smiling face is mostly in shadow. Her left arm rests on the table, which is draped with a red and copper patterned cloth, and she holds a white comb in that hand. A mirror and round silver box sit on the table next to her. A small brown and white dog stands by her feet, its head tilted up to look at the others. The far wall of the room is covered with a faint pattern of golden brown vines and leaves against a forest-green background. The artist signed the painting on the face of the step leading up to the bed, “G. Metsu.”
Gabriel Metsu, The Intruder, c. 1660, oil on panel, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.57

The Intruder

Gabriel Metsu · c. 1660 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1937.1.57

Bibliography

1753

  • Houbraken, Arnold. De Groote Schouburgh der Nederlantsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen. 3 vols. in 1. The Hague, 1753 (Reprint: Amsterdam, 1976): 3:32, 40-42, 51, 211.

1829

  • Smith, John. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters. 9 vols. London, 1829-1842: 4(1833):70-110; 9(1842):517.

1907

  • Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century. 8 vols. Translated by Edward G. Hawke. London, 1907-1927: 1(1907):253-335.

1966

  • Van Wessem, J. N., and Lucia Thyssen. Gabriel Metsu. Exh. cat. Stedelijk Museum "De Lakenhal," Leiden, 1966.

1968

  • Gudlaugsson, Sturla J. "Kanttekeningen bij de ontwikkeling van Metsu." Oud Holland 83 (1968): 13-44.

1974

  • Robinson, Franklin W. Gabriel Metsu (1629-1667): A Study of His Place in Dutch Genre Painting of the Golden Age. New York, 1974.

1984

  • Sutton, Peter C. Masters of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Genre Painting. Edited by Jane Iandola Watkins. Exh. cat. Philadelphia Museum of Art; Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin; Royal Academy of Arts, London. Philadelphia, 1984: 248-253.

1991

  • MacLaren, Neil. The Dutch School, 1600-1900. Revised and expanded by Christopher Brown. 2 vols. National Gallery Catalogues. London, 1991: 1:253-254.

1995

  • .Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 164.

2007

  • Waiboer, Adriaan E. Gabriel Metsu (1629-1667): Life and Work. Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 2007: 45–57, 78–90.

2010

  • Waiboer, Adriaan E. Gabriel Metsu. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; National Gallery of Art, Washington. New Haven, 2010.