Life
Gabriel Metsu
Born: January 1629
Leiden, Dutch Republic
Died: buried 24 October 1667 (age 38)
Amsterdam, Dutch Republic
Nationality: Dutch
Person -> Artist -> Painter
(Leiden - buried Oct 24, 1667, Amsterdam), Dutch painter, was the son of the Flemish painter
Jacques Metsu
Nationality: Dutch
Person -> Artist -> Painter
Father of Gabriel Metsu
(c.1588-1629), who lived most of his days at
Leiden
, where he was three times married. The last of these marriages was celebrated in 1625, and
Jacomijntje Garniers
Nationality: Dutch
Mother of Gabriel Metsu
, herself the widow of a painter with already three children, gave birth to Gabriel.
According to
Houbraken
Arnold Houbraken
Dutch painter and writer on art
Born: March 28, 1660
Dordrecht, Dutch Republic
Died: October 14, 1719 (aged 59)
Amsterdam, Dutch Republic
Person -> Artist -> Painter
Person -> Artist -> Writer
Portrait of Arnold Houbraken by his son Jacob Houbraken
Metsu was taught by
Gerard Dou,
Nationality: Dutch
Field: Painting
Teacher of Gabriel Metsu
influenced Gabriel Metsu
Do you believe it?
Gabriel Metsu was born fifteen years later than the date given by Houbraken.
Most of the details originated from Houbraken's De Groote Schouburgh and were, as we know now, incorrect.
Gabriel Metsu (1629-1667): Life and work
By Adriaan E. Waiboer, New York University. Institute of Fine Arts
though
his early works do not lend colour to this assertion. He was influenced by painters in
Leiden
like
Jan Steen
Nationality: Dutch
Field: Painting
influenced Gabriel Metsu
and
Jan Lievens
Nationality: Dutch
Field: Painting
influenced Gabriel Metsu
, later by
Frans van Mieris the Elder
Nationality: Dutch
Field: Painting
influenced Gabriel Metsu
.
Metsu was registered among the first members
He was only 18 !!!
http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/gabriel-metsu/metsu-hci/1-metsu-hci.shtml
That Metsu early attained proficiency in his art is indicated by the fact that in 1648, when he was only eighteen years old, his name occurs on the list of members of the Gild of Painters of his native town.
of the
painters' corporation at Leiden
Leiden Guild of St. Luke
Abraham Lambertsz van den Tempel founded the Leidse Sint Lucasgilde with his colleagues Gabriel Metsu, Jan Steen, Joris van Schooten, David Bailly and Pieter de Ring in 1648.
; and the books of the guild also tell us that he remained a member in 1649. In 1650 he ceased to subscribe, and works bearing his name and the date of 1653 support the belief that he had
moved to
Gabriel Metsu
Amsterdam
Amsterdam
. In
Leiden
it was told Metsu
left a brothel at six in the morning and took a prostitute to the Academia.
Before he moved to Amsterdam Metsu was trained in Utrecht by
Jan Baptist Weenix
Nationality: Dutch
Field: Painting
teacher of Metsu
influenced Gabriel Metsu
and
Nicolaus Knüpfer
Nationality: Dutch
Field: Painting
teacher of Metsu
influenced Gabriel Metsu
.
In Amsterdam Metsu lived in an alley on
Prinsengracht
, where he kept
chickens .
The fact that Metsu owned chickens helps to explain how he was able to depict fowl with such accuracy, as with the rooster and hen in Vegetable Market in Amsterdam (c. 1657 - 1661).
Vegetable Market in Amsterdam, c. 1657 - 1661
oil on canvas, Musee du Louvre, Departement des Peintures
Collection of Louis XVI, acquired at the Blondel d'Azincourt sale
Paris, 1783
http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2011/metsu/metsu_brochure.pdf
He got into an argument with a neighbor and moved to a house on the canalside, where a daily vegetable market was held. In 1658 he married
Isabella de Wolff
Nationality: Dutch
wife of Metsu
sister of Pieter de Grebber
, whose father was a potter, her mother a painter. (
Pieter de Grebber
Nationality: Dutch
brother of Isabella de Wolff
, a religious painter from Haarlem was her brother).
The Speed Art Museum
Field: Painting
has
a portrait of the couple.
Self-portrait of Gabriel Metsu and his wife Isabella de Wolff
Around the year 1661 Metsu won the protection of the Amsterdam cloth merchant
Jan J. Hinlopen
Nationality: Dutch
cloth merchant
protector of Metsu
and painted his family more than once in a fashionable surrounding. After Metsu died his widow
left for
Isabella de Wolff
Enkhuizen
Enkhuizen
, to live with her mother.
One of his earliest pictures is the
"Lazarus"
Type: painting
Autor: Gabriel Metsu
Location: Starssburg Museum
influenced by Jan Steen
at the
Strassburg Museum
Field:
, painted under the influence of
Jan Steen
Nationality:
Field: painting
influenced Metsu
. In 1653 under the influence of
Rembrandt
Nationality:
Field: painting
influenced Metsu
he painted
"Woman taken in Adultery,"
Type: painting
Autor: Gabriel Metsu
Location: Louvre
influenced by Rembrandt
a large picture which is now in the
Louvre
. To the same period belong the
"Departure of Hagar"
Type: painting
Autor: Gabriel Metsu
Location:
, formerly in the
Thore collection
, and the
"Widow's Mite"
Type: painting
Autor: Gabriel Metsu
Location: Schwerin Gallery
at the
Schwerin Gallery
Field: painting
. But he probably observed that sacred art was ill suited to his temper, or he found the field too strongly occupied, and turned to other subjects for which he was better fitted. That at one time he was deeply impressed by the vivacity and bold technique of
Frans Hals
Nationality:
Field: painting
influenced Metsu
can be gathered from
Lord Lonsdale
Nationality:
Field: painting
influenced Metsu
's
picture of
"Women at a Fishmonger's Shop"
Type: painting
Autor: Lord Lonsdale
Location:
influenced by Frans Hals
Do you want to buy ;-)
Sotheby's London: Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 1,161,250 GBP
A woman selling game from a stall
oil on canvas
62.6 x 49.2 in. / 159 x 125 cm.
What Metsu undertook and carried out from the first with surprising success was the low life of the market and tavern, contrasted, with wonderful versatility, by incidents of high life and the drawing-room. In no single instance do the artistic lessons of
Rembrandt
Nationality:
Field: painting
influenced Metsu
appear to have been lost upon him. The same principles of light and shade which had marked his schoolwork in the
"Woman taken in Adultery,"
Type: painting
Autor: Gabriel Metsu
Location: Louvre
influenced by Rembrandt
were applied to subjects of quite a different kind. A group in a drawing-room, a series of groups in the market-place, or a single figure in the gloom of a tavern or parlour, was treated with the utmost felicity by fit concentration and gradation of light, a warm flush of tone pervading every part, and, with that, the study of texture in stuffs was carried as far as it had been by
Ter Borch
Nationality:
Field: painting
influenced Metsu
Gerard Dou
Nationality:
Field: painting
influenced Metsu
, if not with the finish or the brio of
De Hooch
Nationality:
Field: painting
influenced Metsu
.
Can you see it?
His well-nigh faultless composition, admirable drawing, delicate observation of character, the beauty of his coloring, and his masterly treatment of light and shade combine to place him among the foremost of seventeenth-century Dutch painters.
One of the best pictures of Metsu's manhood is the
"Market-place of Amsterdam,"
Type: painting
Autor: Gabriel Metsu
Location: Louvre
at the
Louvre
, respecting which it is difficult to distribute praise in fair proportions, so excellent are the various parts, the characteristic movement and action of the dramatis personae, the selection of faces, the expression and the gesture, and the texture of the things depicted. Equally fine, though earlier, are the
"Sportsman"
Type: painting
Autor: Gabriel Metsu
Location: Hague Museum
(dated 1661) and the
"Tavern"
Type: painting
Autor: Gabriel Metsu
Location: Dresden Museum
(also 1661) at the
Hague
Hague Museum
and
Dresden Museums
Dresden Museum
, and the
"Game-Dealer's Shop,"
Type: painting
Autor: Gabriel Metsu
Location: Dresden Museum
also at
Dresden
Dresden Museum
, with the painter's signature and 1662.
Among the five examples of the painter in the
Wallace Collection
Location: London
, are
"The Tabby Cat,"
Type: painting
Autor: Gabriel Metsu
Location: Wallace Collection
and
"The Sleeping Sportsman,"
Type: painting
Autor: Gabriel Metsu
Location: Wallace Collection
which cost
Lord Hertford
Nationality:
£ 3000, is an admirable example technically considered. Among his finest representations of home life are the
"Repast"
Type: painting
Autor: Gabriel Metsu
Location: Hermitage in St Petersburg
at the
Hermitage
Location: St Petersburg
in
St Petersburg
; the
"Mother nursing her Sick Child"
Type: painting
Autor: Gabriel Metsu
Location: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
in the
Rijksmuseum
Location: Amsterdam
in
Amsterdam
; the
"Amateur Musicians"
Type: painting
Autor: Gabriel Metsu
Location: Hague Gallery
at the
Hague Gallery
Location: Hague
; the
"Duet"
Type: painting
Autor: Gabriel Metsu
Location: National Gallery, London
and the
"Music Lesson"
Type: painting
Autor: Gabriel Metsu
Location: National Gallery, London
at the
,
National Gallery
Field: painting
Location: London
,
London
and many more examples at nearly all the leading European galleries. Five of his painting are in
Dresden
, collected by
August the Strong
Nationality: German
.(From wikipedia)
Metsu is not a patch on the master. Looking at a Metsu after a Vermeer is like reading Fanny Burney after Jane Austen: entertaining in its way but a stern reminder of why the other is so much admired.
