Old Woman at Her Meal in an Interior
Gabriel Metsu(Leiden 1629 – 1667 Amsterdam)ca. 1654–57
oil on canvas
82.6 x 68.7 cm
indistinctly signed in light paint on wall mirror,
center: “___ETSU”
GM-102© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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How to cite
Waiboer, Adriaan. “Old Woman at Her Meal in an Interior” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited by
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–23. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/(archived December 2023).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

Gabriel Metsu’s move from his native Leiden to Amsterdam in the mid-1650s had a

Comparative Figures[1]

considerable impact on the character of his paintings. In Amsterdam he shifted his
attention from biblical, mythological, and literary subjects to scenes of domestic life.
Moreover, instead of large-scale canvas supports, he started using panels of modest
dimensions, which he painted with a softer and more delicate touch than the broad
and fluid brushwork of his Leiden period. These changes, however, evolved graduallyand did not occur overnight. Old Woman at Her Meal in an Interior is a fascinating
painting that shares stylistic and thematic qualities of both his Leiden and Amsterdam
periods, which indicates that he likely executed it soon after he arrived in
Amsterdam.
Much as with his early Leiden-period history paintings, Metsu has here used a canvas
support. The painting’s size (81.9 x 69.2 cm) does not match the scale of his mostambitious works (see, for example, GM-101, fig. 1), but it is the largest of his earlyFig 1. Gerrit Dou, An Old Woman atPrayer before Her Meal, ca. 1645–50,
oil on panel, 27.7 x 28.3 cm,
Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen,
Alte Pinakothek, Munich, inv.
588, bpk, Berlin / Alte Pinakothek /Art Resource, NY

Amsterdam-period paintings. Its broad and fluid brushwork shares qualities withworks by Jan Baptist Weenix (1621–60/61), an artist Metsu seems to have known
when he was in Utrecht in the early 1650s.[2] Old Woman at Her Meal in an Interior is
one of the last works Metsu painted in which Weenix’s influence still reverberates,
but the painting also includes a number of carefully rendered areas, including the oldwoman’s hands, the earthenware plate, the half-cut bread, and the glass on the floor,
all indicating an evolution in his manner of painting.
Interestingly, Old Woman at Her Meal in an Interior relates to the types of interior
genre scenes that Gerrit Dou (1613–75) depicted in the second half of the 1640s,
subjects that were of no interest to Metsu when he was in Leiden. Only after he

Fig 2. Gabriel Metsu, Twelfth Night,
1653–55, oil on canvas, 80.9 x 97.9
cm, Bayerische
Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte
Pinakothek, Munich, inv. 871, bpk,
Berlin / Alte Pinakothek / Art
Resource, NY© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Old Woman at Her Meal in an Interior
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moved to Amsterdam did Metsu begin painting scenes with themes inspired by Dou,either on his own initiative, having spotted a gap in the Amsterdam art market, or tomeet explicit demands from local collectors for paintings with a “Leiden”
character.[3] The present painting, for example, is thematically and compositionallyrelated to Dou’s An Old Woman at Prayer before Her Meal from the early 1640s (fig1). In these two paintings an elderly female, accompanied by her pet, is shown seatedat a tripod table laden with food. Both scenes are set in a modest interior filled withan array of household items lying on the floor or hanging on the wall. The wooden
panel support that Dou used for his painting, however, is about one-seventh the sizeof Metsu’s canvas, and Dou executed his picture in a meticulous technique that isfundamentally different from Metsu’s fluid brushwork.
Metsu’s and Dou’s paintings differ in the artists’ use of light and color. Even thoughDou’s work has a relatively strong light and dark contrast, Metsu deepened this effectto a near-chiaroscuro with a spotlighted circle on the wooden floor. Moreover, he
reduced the number and the intensity of bright color areas. The result is a more
tranquil image with a stronger focus on the center of the composition. The samecombination of more evocative lighting and monochrome coloring can be seen insome early works by Nicolaes Maes (1634–93). This artist began painting old womenand kitchen maids soon after he returned to his native Dordrecht after training with
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69) in Amsterdam. These similarities in style suggest that
Metsu traveled to Dordrecht to study some of Maes’s paintings, although thechronology of their works from the mid-1650s is uncertain.[4] It may be that bothartists independently transformed Dou’s work in a slightly Rembrandtesque manner.
Though not a student of Rembrandt, Metsu had incorporated stylistic and thematicborrowings from paintings by the Amsterdam master as early as 1653.[5]Metsu was not the only painter that followed Dou in depicting old women in humble
interiors. Various artists from Leiden and surrounding areas repeatedly painted thisfigure type—with dark, penetrating eyes, prominent cheekbones, and pouting lips—inmodest interiors.[6] Metsu first depicted this particular model in his Twelfth Night of1653–55 (fig 2), and she reappears a number of times in Metsu’s works of his early
Amsterdam period—selling pancakes, reading a book, feeding a dog, eating porridge,
and combing a young woman’s hair.[7] All these latter works are smaller and slightly
more refined in execution than Old Woman at Her Meal in an Interior, suggesting that
Metsu completed them slightly later. Remarkably, he continued representing thissame old woman into the mid-1660s.[8]Metsu’s image of an old woman eating by herself indicates that she was a widow.
Elderly women who had outlived their husbands were popular subjects in both thevisual arts and contemporary literature. In the last chapter of his Houwelyck (1625),© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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entitled “Weduwe” (Widow), Jacob Cats (1577–1660) discussed widows as exemplarsof life’s transience and encouraged them to concentrate on spiritual matters rather
than earthly ones.[9] Cats also associated widows with sobriety and modesty, andadvised them to refrain from extravagance, even with regard to food. A passage from
Consolation Letter of Widows (1630) by Pieter Iansz Twisck (1565–1636), originally aletter the Mennonite author had sent to his recently widowed sister-in-law, also
reflects such expectations:
The greatest honor and praise for widows is moderation in all her doings:
moderation not only in food, in the care of her body, in her clothing, demeanor,and behavior but also with regard to her family, when she is in the presence ofother people, in front of authorities and her familiar friends.[10]Contemporary viewers would have associated the widow’s meal of meat, cheese andbread with sobriety and moderation, a notion reinforced by the modest interior andthe way she tilts her head slightly forward to suggest a humble demeanor.
Metsu gave the scene a religious undertone by including a glass of red wine on thefloor and a piece of bread on the tripod table, Eucharistic associations that accord
with Metsu’s Catholic religious beliefs.[11] Metsu’s most overt Catholic painting, Saint
Dorothy, from the mid-1660s, depicts the saint expressing her loyalty to Christ at an
altar surrounded by an abundance of Catholic paraphernalia, including a ciborium, alarge covered cup designed to hold the Host for the celebration of the
Eucharist.[12] The reference to the Christian sacrament in Metsu’s Old Woman at Her
Meal in an Interior is subtle by comparison.

- Adriaan Waiboer, 2017

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Endnotes
1. On the date of Metsu’s move from Leiden to Amsterdam, see Adriaan E. Waiboer, “The Early Years ofGabriel Metsu,” Burlington Magazine 147 (2005): 90, and Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life andWork: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven, 2012), 7–8.
2. On Metsu’s relationship with Weenix, see Adriaan E. Waiboer, “The Early Years of Gabriel Metsu,”
Burlington Magazine 147 (2005): 89–90; Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A
Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven, 2012), 23–24; Melanie E. Gifford, “Fine Painting and Eloquent
Imprecision: Gabriel Metsu’s Painting Technique,” in Gabriel Metsu, ed. Adriaan E. Waiboer (Exh. cat.
Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; Washington D.C., National Gallery ofArt) (New Haven, 2010), 159–61.
3. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Review of Robinson 1974,” Art Bulletin 58 (1976): 458, suggested that
Metsu’s interest in Dou’s work after his move to Amsterdam may have been “a response to a market in
Amsterdam for Dou-like paintings.” See also Pieter Roelofs, “Early Owners of Paintings by Metsu in
Leiden and Amsterdam,” in Gabriel Metsu, ed. Adriaan E. Waiboer (Exh. cat. Dublin, National Galleryof Ireland; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) (New Haven, 2010),
103–5, and Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven,2012), 33–44.
4. Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven, 2012), 370 n. 6.
5. On Rembrandt’s influence on Metsu’s early work and in particular on his Christ and the Woman Taken in
Adultery, dated 1653, see Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné(New Haven, 2012), 19–20.
6. Rather than painting the same model, these Leiden artists, among them Frans van Mieris (1635–81),
Quiringh van Brekelenkam (1622/29–69/79), Dominicus van Tol (1635–76), Jacob van Spreeuwen(1611–after 1650), and Abraham de Pape (1620–66), depicted the same figure type. Dou introduced her
into his work in the 1630s, possibly as a variation of “Rembrandt’s mother,” a figure type Rembrandt
and his followers painted repeatedly. On the concept of Rembrandt’s mother, see Rembrandt’s Mother:
Myth and Reality, ed. Christiaan Vogelaar and Gerbrandt Korevaar (Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum
De Lakenhal) (Zwolle, 2005).
7. Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven, 2012), 175–80,
nos A-20, A-21, A-22, A-24, A-25, A-27, A-28, all ill.
8. Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven, 2012), 241–43,
nos. A-97, A-98, A-99, A-100, all ill.
9. Jacob Cats, Houwelyck, dat is de gantsche ghelegentheyt des echten-staets (Middelburg, 1625), 3–48.
10. This part of Troostbrief der weduwen by Twisck is quoted in Wayne E. Franits, Paragons of Virtue:
Women and Domesticity in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art (Cambridge, 1993), 176, 243 n. 43 (original© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Dutch text). See chapter 4, “Weduwe,” of Franits’s book (161–94) for an excellent description of Dutch
paintings of widows and old women at home.
11. Although documentation is lacking, a handful of biographical facts suggest that the artist was Catholic.
Moreover, a number of his works have subjects or include elements that would have resonated with a
Catholic audience. For more on Metsu’s religion, see Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life andWork: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven, 2012), 10.
12. For more on Metsu’s Saint Dorothy, see Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue
Raisonné (New Haven, 2012), 119, 254, no. A-114, ill.

ProvenanceAlexis-Joseph Febvre (1810–1881), Paris (his sale, Hotel Drouot, George, Le Roy, Lechat, Chevallier,Paris, 17–20 April 1882, no. 74 [for fr. 3,500 to possibly Elhnazaer]).
Collection M. Elhnazaer (sale, Musée Galliera, Ader, Couturier, Paris, 9 December 1961, no. 31).
Private collection, France, by 1971 (sale, Guignard, Hôtel des Ventes Gabriel, Lorient, 2 July 2000, notsold; sale, Mercier et Cie, Lille, 23 June 2002, no. 225 [Salomon Lilian, B.V., Amsterdam, andKunsthandel P. de Boer, Amsterdam, 2002]).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2003.

Exhibition History
Maastricht, European Fine Arts Fair, March 2003 [exhibited by Salomon Lilian, B. V.].
Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, “Gabriel Metsu,” 4 September–5 December 2010; Amsterdam,
Rijksmuseum, 16 December 2010–21 March 2011; Washington, National Gallery of Art, 10 April–24
July 2011, no. 36 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden
Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection,” 23 September 2017–25 February 2018 [lent by the present
owner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpiecesof The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018 [lent by the present owner].
St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces of© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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The Leiden Collection,” 5 September 2018–13 January 2019 [lent by the present owner].
Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre,” 14 February–18 May 2019 [lent by the present
owner].

References
Eudel, Paul. L’Hotel Drouot et la curiosité en 1882 avec une préface par M. Armand Silvestre. 2 vols.
Paris, 1883, 2: 248.
Robinson, Franklin W. Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667): A Study of His Place in Dutch Genre Painting of theGolden Age. New York, 1974, 33, 80, fig. 57.
Weebers, W.P.J.A. Isack Mes, Genreschilder te Dordrecht: Zijn Leven en zijn Werk 1622–1668 (of eind
1667?). Nijmegen, 1976, 34, fig. 17.
Waiboer, Adriaan E. “An Old Woman at Her Meal.” In Salomon Lilian Old Masters. Sales cat.
Amsterdam, Salomon Lilian, B.V. Zwolle, 2003, 42–47, no. 15.
Waiboer, Adriaan E. “Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667): Life and Work.” 4 vols. PhD diss. New York
University, 2007, 1: 107 n. 7, 108, 110–11; 2: 418–20, no. A-23; 4:1072.
Waiboer, Adriaan E., ed. Gabriel Metsu. Exh. cat. Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland; Amsterdam,
Rijksmuseum; Washington, National Gallery of Art. New Haven, 2010, 9–10, fig. 8; 195, no. 36.
Duparc, Frederik J., et al. Golden: Dutch and Flemish Masterworks from the Rose-Marie and Eijk van
Otterloo Collection. Exh. cat. Salem, Peabody Essex Museum; San Francisco, Fine Arts Museums of San
Francisco; Houston, Museum of Fine Arts. New Haven, 201, 202, 204, no. 1.
Waiboer, Adriaan E. Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné. New Haven, 2012, 34, 175,
no. A-20.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Rembrandt and His Time: China and the Dutch Republic in the Golden Age.” In
Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 10;15, no. 48. Translated by Li Ying. Exh. cat. Beijing, National Museum of China. Beijing, 2017.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Old Woman at Her Meal in an Interior.” In Rembrandt and His Time:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 116–17; 183, no. 48.
Translated by Li Ying. Exh. cat. Beijing, National Museum of China. Beijing, 2017.
Long Museum, West Bund. Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund. Shanghai, 2017, 162–63.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “The Leiden Collection and the Dutch Golden Age.” In The Age of Rembrandt
and Vermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 17, 25; 29, 33.
Translated by Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine
Arts; St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.
© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Old Woman at Her Meal in an Interior.” In The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 124–25; 237, no. 29. Translated by
Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; St.
Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “The Leiden Collection and the Dutch Golden Age.” In Rembrandt, Vermeer andthe Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Edited by
Blaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 25. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019.
[Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
Ducos, Blaise, and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, eds. Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age.
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu
Dhabi. London, 2019, 160, no. 79. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]

Technical Summary
The support, a single piece of medium-weight, plain-weave fabric, has been lined. All four tacking margins
have been removed, although remnants of the left and right tacking margins remain. Cusping along all foursides—deep on the lower edge, shallow on the left, right, and upper edges—indicates that the composition’s
dimensions have not been significantly altered.[1] A vertical canvas tear along the lower left quadrant, to theleft of the figure, was repaired prior to lining.[2] Remnants of paper tape from a previous lining are present
along the canvas edges. There is one handwritten inscription along the stretcher but no wax collection seals,
stencils, labels or import stamps along the lining or stretcher.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied, and remains exposed along the left and righttacking margin remnants. A blackish sketched outline, which remains visible below the left edge of the skirt,
appears to outline the foreground elements but not those along the background.[3] The paint appears to havebeen applied with a thin wash underpaint followed by a more opaque final paint. The opaque paint has been
applied extremely smoothly with no use of impasto and almost entirely of monochrome ochers. The glass on
the floor was added after that area was completed, as it overlaps the skirt and floor.[4] Very little of thecomposition is visible in the X-radiograph aside from the white tablecloth draped over the table and thefigure’s white collar.[5]No underdrawing or compositional changes are readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000
nanometers or in the X-radiograph.
The painting is indistinctly signed in whitish-gray paint on the black wall mirror hanging along the center ofthe background. A fine network of drying cracks allows a light brown underlayer to show through, which isdarker and more pronounced than the whitish-gray paint of the signature and therefore makes the signaturedifficult to read. Under magnification, the “M” is no longer visible, but the “ETSU” remains clear.
The painting was cleaned and restored in 2002 and remains in a good state of preservation.
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Technical Summary Endnotes

1. According to 2009 examination notes by E. Melanie Gifford, Scientific Department, National Gallery ofArt, Washington D.C.
2. Approx. 7 cm long.
3. According to 2009 examination notes by E. Melanie Gifford, Scientific Department, National Gallery ofArt, Washington D.C.
4. According to 2009 examination notes by E. Melanie Gifford, Scientific Department, National Gallery ofArt, Washington D.C.
5. In raking light, only the canvas weave is apparent. There is no raised brushwork or raised outer contoursof the forms.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection