1629-1667 Dutch Gabriel Metsu Galleries One of his earliest pictures is the "Lazarus" at the Strassburg Museum, painted under the influence of Jan Steen. In 1653 under the influence of Rembrandt he painted "Woman taken in Adultery," a large picture which is now in the Louvre. To the same period belong the "Departure of Hagar," formerly in the Thore collection, and the "Widow's Mite" at the Schwerin Gallery. 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 can be gathered from Lord Lonsdale's picture of "Women at a Fishmonger's Shop." 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 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" 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 or Gerard Dou, if not with the finish or the brio of De Hooch. One of the best pictures of Metsu's manhood is the "Market-place of Amsterdam," 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" (dated 1661) and the "Tavern" (also 1661) at the Hague and Dresden Museums, and the "Game-Dealer's Shop," also at Dresden, with the painter's signature and 1662. Gabriel Metsu, Man Writing a Letter (1662-1665), Oil on canvas, National Gallery of Ireland, DublinAmong the five examples of the painter in the Wallace Collection, are "The Tabby Cat," and "The Sleeping Sportsman," which cost Lord Hertford £ 3000, is an admirable example technically considered. Among his finest representations of home life are the "Repast" at the Hermitage in St Petersburg; the "Mother nursing her Sick Child" in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam; the "Amateur Musicians" at the Hague Gallery; the "Duet" and the "Music Lesson" at the National Gallery, London, and many more examples at nearly all the leading European galleries. Five of his painting are in Dresden, collected by August the Strong.  Related Paintings of Gabriel Metsu :. | The family of Jan Jacobsz Hinlopen just before the youngest and his wife Leonora Huydecoper van Maarsseveen died | The Hunter and a Woman | A Man and a Woman Seated by a Virginal | Breakfast | The Apothecary |
Related Artists:
Lambert, George
English Painter, ca.1700-1765 English painter. He was a pupil of Warner Hassels ( fl 1680-1710), a portrait painter in Godfrey Kneller's circle, but Lambert's earliest dated painting, Classical Landscape with Two Figures (1723; priv. col.), already shows the influence of the landscape painter John Wootton. From 1726 he worked in London as a scene painter at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre; he followed the impresario John Rich to Covent Garden Theatre in 1732 and continued to work there until his death. In 1735 he was a founder-member of the prestigious Beef-Steak Club, an association of actors, men of letters and artists, among them William Hogarth and Rich.
Edwin Howland Blashfield
mural painter and mosaic designer. American ,1848-1936 American painter. He began to study art seriously in 1867 in Paris under L?on Bonnat, with whom he remained (except between 1870 and 1874) until 1880. Blashfield's mural style was significantly influenced by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Jean-Paul Laurens and Paul Baudry, whose decorations he had studied in the Panth?on while in Paris. He made a trip in 1887 to England, where he became briefly associated with the Anglo-American artists' colony in Broadway, Glos, which included Edwin Austin Abbey, John Singer Sargent, Lawrence Alma-Tadema and Frederic Leighton.
Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer
(12 January 1636 - 20 February 1699) was a Franco-Flemish painter who specialised in flower pieces. He was attached to the Gobelins tapestry workshops and the Beauvais tapestry workshops, too, where he produced cartoons of fruit and flowers for the tapestry-weavers, and at Beauvais was one of three painterswho collaborated to produce cartoons for the suite The Emperor of China. He was born at Lille, but was in Paris by 1650, where he was documented working on the decors of the Hôtel Lambert. He was taken up by Charles Le Brun for decorative painting at the Château de Marly and at the Grand Dauphin's residence, the Château de Meudon. He was received at the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1665 with a piece of the genre that he made his specialty, a still life of flowers and fruit combined with objets d'art. His only appearance at the Paris salon was in 1673.