Gabriel Metsu
Encyclopedia
Gabriël Metsu was a Dutch
painter
of history painting
s, genre works and portrait
s.
painter Jacques Metsu (c.1588-1629), who lived most of his days at Leiden, and Jacomijntje Garniers, his third wife, whom he married in 1625. Jacomijntje was the widow of a painter with three children of her own. Two months after Gabriël's birth, his father died.
According to Jacobus Houbraken
, Metsu was taught by Gerard Dou
, though his early works do not lend colour to this assertion. He was influenced by painters of Leiden such as Jan Steen
, and later by Frans van Mieris the Elder.
Metsu was registered among the first members of the painters' corporation at Leiden; and the books of the guild
also tell us that he remained a member in 1649. In Leiden, it was alleged that Metsu left a brothel
at six in the morning and took a prostitute to the Academy
. In 1650 he ceased to subscribe, and works bearing his name and the date of 1653 support the belief that he had moved. Metsu was trained in Utrecht
by Jan Baptist Weenix
and Nicolaus Knüpfer.
In Amsterdam Metsu lived in an alley on Prinsengracht, where he kept chickens. He got into an argument with a neighbor and moved to a house on the canal side, where a daily vegetable market was held. In 1658 he married Isabella de Wolff, whose father was a potter and mother a painter. The Speed Art Museum
has a portrait of the couple. Pieter de Grebber
, a religious painter from Haarlem
, was her uncle.
At the onset of the 1660s Metsu turned for inspiration to the art of the "fijnschilder
s" from his native Leiden. Metsu was responding to the market of Dou's paintings, who sold his paintings all over for exorbitant prices. Metsu may have also influenced Pieter de Hoogh. Around the year 1661, Metsu won the patronage of the Amsterdam cloth merchant Jan J. Hinlopen
and painted his family more than once in a fashionable surrounding.
At least thirteen of paintings show carpet
s and he probably used the same model. He included several fine examples of minutely depicted floral and cloudband carpets in his works and even a silk Oriental rug
, as well as so-called "Lotto
" rugs which he for some reason, in contrast to his meticulous rendering of the floral carpets, depicted only in a very sketchy fashion. After Metsu died, his widow left for Enkhuizen
, to live with her mother.
, he often painted young women who either sold goods at market (fruit, vegetables, fish, poultry, or meat) or were grocery-shopping themselves for these things. Houbraken ends his biography with the comment that he was "of impeccable reputation", but he may have meant this ironically. Often, the subject of a Metsu painting was based on a popular emblem from an emblem book
. This can give the painting a double meaning, such as in The Poultry seller, 1662, showing an old man offering a rooster to a young girl in a symbolic pose that is based on a lewd engraving by Gillis van Breen (1595–1622), with the same scene. The accompanying verse (to bird = to make love) is
.jpg)
There is still some confusion about two paintings by Metsu — the Portrait of the family Hinlopen
, now in the Gemäldegalerie, which for a few decades was referred to as The Family of burgomaster Gillis Valckenier, and Visit to the Nursery — in the Metropolitan Museum. There is some general resemblance.
The latter belonged to Jan J. Hinlopen. In 1662 Jan Vos published a poem about this painting, belonging to Jan J. Hinlopen. It might depict the Hinlopen family, but as the sitters have not been identified this painting it is more a genre work than a portrait
.
Arnold Houbraken
, in 1721, recalled the latter painting as the largest and finest work by Metsu he had ever seen. Franits calls it one of his most intriguing images. What makes this painting especially interesting is its provenance. The provenance of this painting is well-known, except for between the years 1666 and 1706. Most of Jan Hinlopen's collection passed to his daughters. In 1680, after the burial of his brother and guardian Jacob J. Hinlopen
his paintings were divided in lots and given to his daughters but none of the paintings or painters is mentioned.
The scene is set in an imaginary room of unrealistically large proportions. The father gestures deferentially while a maid dutifully fetches a chair for this esteemed visitor. The chimney resembles the one in the former Amsterdam townhall, also painted by Pieter de Hoogh. There is a seascape
on the wall and Persian carpets on the table and the floor. The carpet on the table is divided into compartments, which are partly vermilion
red and partly purple
red, and shield-shaped. The dark blue color of the borders on the carpet are relatively unusual. The dog in the painting could be a Bolognese
. Hung in the reception room of Hinlopen's home, the Visit to the Nursery thus alluded to his powerful role in local politics.
Remarkable is that both paintings seem to be related to Jan's daughter Sara Hinlopen, as he apparently commissioned 'The Visit to the Nursery' on the occasion of her birth, while she is also the focal point of the Portrait of the family Hinlopen
.
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
of history painting
History painting
History painting is a genre in painting defined by subject matter rather than an artistic style, depicting a moment in a narrative story, rather than a static subject such as a portrait...
s, genre works and portrait
Portrait
thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...
s.
Life
Metsu was the son of the FlemishFlemish people
The Flemings or Flemish are the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, where they are mostly found in the northern region of Flanders. They are one of two principal cultural-linguistic groups in Belgium, the other being the French-speaking Walloons...
painter Jacques Metsu (c.1588-1629), who lived most of his days at Leiden, and Jacomijntje Garniers, his third wife, whom he married in 1625. Jacomijntje was the widow of a painter with three children of her own. Two months after Gabriël's birth, his father died.
According to Jacobus Houbraken
Jacobus Houbraken
Jacobus Houbraken was a Dutch engraver, who was born in Dordrecht.-Biography:Jacobus learned the art of engraving from his father, Arnold Houbraken...
, Metsu was taught by Gerard Dou
Gerard Dou
Gerrit Dou , also known as Gerard and Douw or Dow, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, whose small, highly-polished paintings are typical of the Leiden fijnschilders...
, though his early works do not lend colour to this assertion. He was influenced by painters of Leiden such as Jan Steen
Jan Steen
Jan Havickszoon Steen was a Dutch genre painter of the 17th century . Psychological insight, sense of humour and abundance of colour are marks of his trade.-Life:...
, and later by Frans van Mieris the Elder.
Metsu was registered among the first members of the painters' corporation at Leiden; and the books of the guild
Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...
also tell us that he remained a member in 1649. In Leiden, it was alleged that Metsu left a brothel
Brothel
Brothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...
at six in the morning and took a prostitute to the Academy
Leiden University
Leiden University , located in the city of Leiden, is the oldest university in the Netherlands. The university was founded in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, leader of the Dutch Revolt in the Eighty Years' War. The royal Dutch House of Orange-Nassau and Leiden University still have a close...
. In 1650 he ceased to subscribe, and works bearing his name and the date of 1653 support the belief that he had moved. Metsu was trained in Utrecht
Utrecht (city)
Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features...
by Jan Baptist Weenix
Jan Baptist Weenix
Jan Baptist Weenix , a painter of the Dutch Golden Age. Despite his relatively brief career, he was a very productive and versatile painter. His favourite subjects were Italian landscapes with large figures among ruins, seaside views, and, later in life, large still life pictures of dead game or dogs...
and Nicolaus Knüpfer.
Speed Art Museum
The Speed Art Museum, originally known as the J.B. Speed Memorial Museum, now colloquially referred to as the Speed by locals, is the oldest, largest, and foremost museum of art in Kentucky...
has a portrait of the couple. Pieter de Grebber
Pieter de Grebber
Pieter Fransz de Grebber was a Dutch Golden Age painter.-Life:De Grebber was the oldest son of Frans Pietersz de Grebber , a painter and embroiderer in Haarlem, and the brother of the painters Maria and Albert. He learned to paint from his father and from Hendrick Goltzius...
, a religious painter from Haarlem
Haarlem
Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...
, was her uncle.
At the onset of the 1660s Metsu turned for inspiration to the art of the "fijnschilder
Fijnschilder
The Fijnschilders , also called the Leiden Fijnschilders , were Dutch Golden Age painters who, from about 1630 to 1710, strove to create as natural a reproduction of reality as possible in their meticulously executed, often small-scale works.Although in the seventeenth century, as in modern Dutch,...
s" from his native Leiden. Metsu was responding to the market of Dou's paintings, who sold his paintings all over for exorbitant prices. Metsu may have also influenced Pieter de Hoogh. Around the year 1661, Metsu won the patronage of the Amsterdam cloth merchant Jan J. Hinlopen
Jan Jacobszoon Hinlopen
Jan Jacobszoon Hinlopen was a rich Dutch cloth merchant, an officer in the civic guard, a real estate developer in the Jordaan, alderman in the city council and a keen art collector. He would have been elected as a burgomaster, if he had not died at the age of forty, an age considered acceptable...
and painted his family more than once in a fashionable surrounding.
Carpet
A carpet is a textile floor covering consisting of an upper layer of "pile" attached to a backing. The pile is generally either made from wool or a manmade fibre such as polypropylene,nylon or polyester and usually consists of twisted tufts which are often heat-treated to maintain their...
s and he probably used the same model. He included several fine examples of minutely depicted floral and cloudband carpets in his works and even a silk Oriental rug
Oriental rug
An authentic oriental rug is a handmade carpet that is either knotted with pile or woven without pile.By definition - Oriental rugs are rugs that come from the orient...
, as well as so-called "Lotto
Lotto carpet
A Lotto carpet is a hand knotted carpet having a pattern that was primarily produced during the 16th and 17th centuries along the Aegean coast of Anatolia, Turkey, but also copied in various parts of Europe. It is characterized by a lacy arabesque, usually in yellow on a red ground, often with...
" rugs which he for some reason, in contrast to his meticulous rendering of the floral carpets, depicted only in a very sketchy fashion. After Metsu died, his widow left for Enkhuizen
Enkhuizen
Enkhuizen is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland and the region of West-Frisia.Enkhuizen was one of the harbour-towns of the VOC, just like Hoorn and Amsterdam, from where overseas trade with the East Indies was conducted. It received city rights in 1355...
, to live with her mother.
Works
According to Arnold HoubrakenArnold Houbraken
Arnold Houbraken was a Dutch painter and writer from Dordrecht, now remembered mainly as a biographer of artists from the Dutch Golden Age. He had ten children. His son Jacobus Houbraken was an engraver of portraits and book illustrations, including books by his father...
, he often painted young women who either sold goods at market (fruit, vegetables, fish, poultry, or meat) or were grocery-shopping themselves for these things. Houbraken ends his biography with the comment that he was "of impeccable reputation", but he may have meant this ironically. Often, the subject of a Metsu painting was based on a popular emblem from an emblem book
Emblem book
Emblem books are a category of mainly didactic illustrated book printed in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, typically containing a number of emblematic images with explanatory text....
. This can give the painting a double meaning, such as in The Poultry seller, 1662, showing an old man offering a rooster to a young girl in a symbolic pose that is based on a lewd engraving by Gillis van Breen (1595–1622), with the same scene. The accompanying verse (to bird = to make love) is
Two paintings of the Hinlopen family
Portrait of the family Hinlopen
There is some confusion among art historians about the history of the Portrait of the Family Hinlopen painting by Metsu. The painting is in the Berlin Gemäldegalerie. It is not clear if this painting is a genre work or a portrait....
, now in the Gemäldegalerie, which for a few decades was referred to as The Family of burgomaster Gillis Valckenier, and Visit to the Nursery — in the Metropolitan Museum. There is some general resemblance.
The latter belonged to Jan J. Hinlopen. In 1662 Jan Vos published a poem about this painting, belonging to Jan J. Hinlopen. It might depict the Hinlopen family, but as the sitters have not been identified this painting it is more a genre work than a portrait
Portrait
thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...
.
Arnold Houbraken
Arnold Houbraken
Arnold Houbraken was a Dutch painter and writer from Dordrecht, now remembered mainly as a biographer of artists from the Dutch Golden Age. He had ten children. His son Jacobus Houbraken was an engraver of portraits and book illustrations, including books by his father...
, in 1721, recalled the latter painting as the largest and finest work by Metsu he had ever seen. Franits calls it one of his most intriguing images. What makes this painting especially interesting is its provenance. The provenance of this painting is well-known, except for between the years 1666 and 1706. Most of Jan Hinlopen's collection passed to his daughters. In 1680, after the burial of his brother and guardian Jacob J. Hinlopen
Jacob J. Hinlopen
Jacob J. Hinlopen lived in a house with Hinlopen in the gable, now at 155 Nieuwendijk. He traded in cloth and Indian wares. In 1602 he was co-founder of the Dutch East India Company in Enkhuizen, his descendants inherited very old stocks. He also was the first person of Flemish origin, that in...
his paintings were divided in lots and given to his daughters but none of the paintings or painters is mentioned.
The scene is set in an imaginary room of unrealistically large proportions. The father gestures deferentially while a maid dutifully fetches a chair for this esteemed visitor. The chimney resembles the one in the former Amsterdam townhall, also painted by Pieter de Hoogh. There is a seascape
Seascape
A seascape is a photograph, painting, or other work of art which depicts the sea, in other words an example of marine art. By a backwards development, the word has also come to mean the view of the sea itself, and be applied in planning contexts to geographical locations possessing a good view of...
on the wall and Persian carpets on the table and the floor. The carpet on the table is divided into compartments, which are partly vermilion
Vermilion
Vermilion is an opaque orangish red pigment, similar to scarlet. As a naturally occurring mineral pigment, it is known as cinnabar, and was in use around the world before the Common Era began. Most naturally produced vermilion comes from cinnabar mined in China, and vermilion is nowadays commonly...
red and partly purple
Purple
Purple is a range of hues of color occurring between red and blue, and is classified as a secondary color as the colors are required to create the shade....
red, and shield-shaped. The dark blue color of the borders on the carpet are relatively unusual. The dog in the painting could be a Bolognese
Bolognese (dog)
The Bolognese is a small breed of dog of the Bichon type, originating in Italy. The name refers to the northern Italian city of Bologna.-Appearance:...
. Hung in the reception room of Hinlopen's home, the Visit to the Nursery thus alluded to his powerful role in local politics.
Remarkable is that both paintings seem to be related to Jan's daughter Sara Hinlopen, as he apparently commissioned 'The Visit to the Nursery' on the occasion of her birth, while she is also the focal point of the Portrait of the family Hinlopen
Portrait of the family Hinlopen
There is some confusion among art historians about the history of the Portrait of the Family Hinlopen painting by Metsu. The painting is in the Berlin Gemäldegalerie. It is not clear if this painting is a genre work or a portrait....
.
Sources
- Robinson, F.W. (1974) Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667) a Study of His Place in Dutch Genre Painting of the Golden Age.
- Stone-Ferrier, L. (1989) Gabriel Metsu's Vegetable Market at Amsterdam: seventeenth century Dutch market paintings and horticulture. In: Art Bulletin Jrg. 71 (1989), nr. 3 (September)