Hunter Getting Dressed after Bathing
Gabriel Metsu(Leiden 1629 – 1667 Amsterdam)ca. 1654–56
oil on panel
51.7 x 63.8 cm
signed in dark paint, lower center, on
gunstock: “GMetsù.” (GM in ligature)
GM-106© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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How to cite
Waiboer, Adriaan. “Hunter Getting Dressed after Bathing” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed.
Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/self-portrait-ofthe-artist-as-a-hunter/ (archived May 2020).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive ismanaged by a permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative
occurs.

In one of the most remarkable and unexpected paintings in Dutch art, GabrielComparative Figures

Metsu has here portrayed himself as a seated nude bather putting on his
shirt after a dip in the water. Not at all modest, he smiles at the viewer like anactor addressing his audience. Lying on the ground near him are his rifle andpowder horn, while the dead hare hanging from a tree branch suggests that
he has taken his swim to cool off after his successful hunt. Standing patiently
by his side is his faithful dog. Other, smaller figures are seen in the
background, including a nude bather and a couple walking along a road near
the bridge spanning the water where a man stands observing the scene.
Given the watery terrain of the Netherlands, remarkably few works actually
depict people enjoying a swim. Bathers are sometimes seen in landscapepaintings by, among others, Philips Wouwerman (1619–68), Paulus Potter(1625–54), and Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/29–82), but they are generally
small-scale figures and not individualized as in this case.[1] In fact, swimmingFig 1. Gerrit Dou. Male Nude, ca.
1660–65, oil on panel, 25 x 19 cm,
The State Hermitage Museum,
St. Petersburg, 893

does not seem to have been a common pastime for the Dutch. Water inurban areas was often polluted, and even in the countryside people rarely
plunged into rivers and lakes. People even abstained from taking baths(except for medical reasons) out of fear that germs could enter the bodyonce submersed in the water.[2]The only artist, other than Metsu, to depict a single large-scale male bather
was Gerrit Dou (1613–75) in a painting now in the State Hermitage Museum,
St. Petersburg (fig 1). The thematic similarities with Metsu’s painting© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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prompted one scholar to argue that Dou’s composition served as Metsu’s
model.[3] Hunter Getting Dressed after Bathing, however, predates Dou’s
painting by some 10 years. Moreover, Dou’s classicizing image of a soldier
pointing into the distance is remarkably different from the smiling hunter in

Fig 2. Gabriel Metsu, Self-Portrait
as a Painter, 1655–58, oil on
panel, 38 x 31.4 cm, Royal
Collection, Her Majesty Queen
Elizabeth II, 901, Royal Collection
Trust / © Her Majesty Queen
Elizabeth II 2014

Metsu’s work. Unlike Dou, Metsu made no effort to hide corporalimperfections or irregularities and gave his hunter a distinctly portrait-likecharacter.
The identification of the hunter as Metsu is based on a comparison of his
facial features with Self-Portrait as a Painter (fig 2).[4] Although Dutch genre
paintings are filled with self-portraits and depictions of artists’ family
members, Metsu’s rendering of himself nude is unique. The question of why
Metsu portrayed himself in this extremely unconventional manner is difficult
to answer, but it may be related to the guise he assumed here as a hunter. In
the seventeenth century, hunting for all but the smallest game was restricted
to the court, the nobility, and officers of the state.[5] The young Metsu, who
did not occupy an elevated position in society, would never have been
allowed to participate in this sport, but, as is suggested in this painting, he
may have been permitted to shoot hares.[6] Despite the prominent status ofFig 3. Gabriel Metsu, A Hunter
Showing His Prey, 1654–56, oil on
panel, 50 x 38.8 cm, Hamburger
Kunsthalle, Hamburg, 378, bpk,
Berlin / Hamburger Kunsthalle /Elke Walford / Art Resource, NY

hunting, however, Dutch artists often depicted hunters as lusty figures who
were as interested in chasing women as game. The phallic shape of theirlong-barreled rifles often served as a visual pun to their virility. Metsu may
have been playing on this association by the prominent placement of his rifle,
and by signing his painting on the rifle’s stock.
Artists also played on verbal puns to suggest a hunter’s lustful desires. The
Dutch verb vogelen (literally “to bird”) was used commonly to refer tocopulating, and painters, including Metsu, often depicted hunters courting
women by offering them birds.[7] Likewise, the expression “hunting hares”
was a metaphor for intercourse.[8] Although hares appear less frequently
than birds in depictions of hunters, Gerrit Dou and Frans van Mieris(1635–81) repeatedly included them in suggestive images of poultry andFig 4. Gabriel Metsu, A Cavalier
Visiting a Blacksmith Shop,
1654–56, oil on canvas, 65.4 x
73.3 cm, Salting Bequest, 1910,
The National Gallery, London, NG
2591, © National Gallery, London /Art Resource, NY

game shops to underscore a woman’s sexuality.[9]Hunter Getting Dressed after Bathing was probably meant to evoke alascivious sportsman, with his nude muscular body and suggestive smile
further accentuating his self-assured masculinity. Highlighting a hunter’s
libido also seems to have been the central theme in another image of asportsman that Metsu painted around the same time as Hunter Getting
Dressed after Bathing. This genre-like portrait represents a sportsman andhis partridge dog enjoying a break in the woods (fig 3). Having put down his© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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powder horn and rifle, the hunter proudly holds up a bird he has just shot, agesture indicating his virility.[10] Several years later, around 1660, the Leiden
artist Arie de Vois (1630/35–80) drew inspiration from Metsu by painting his
self-portrait as a hunter in the same pose as that in Hunter Showing His
Prey.[11] De Vois placed the long-barreled rifle next to the hunter’s hip, arather explicit reference to the rifle’s phallic symbolic association.
It is tempting to think that Metsu intended this painting as a personal joke,
but the picture probably found a prominent buyer during the artist’s lifetimeor soon after his death. The English merchant Thomas Mayden, who lived on
the Fluwelen Burgwal in Amsterdam, owned at his death in 1692, “eenswemmer van [Metzu]” (a swimmer by Metzu), which was almost certainly
Hunter Getting Dressed after Bathing.[12] In addition to “een swemmer,”
Mayden owned another painting by Metsu described as “een smit” (a smith).
This painting may have been A Cavalier Visiting a Blacksmith’s Shop (fig 4),
which Metsu had completed not long after his painting of the nude hunter.
Interestingly, the painting of the blacksmith’s shop depicts the artist in therole of a pompous officer who has ordered an old, feeble smith to make himsome horseshoes. Perhaps the two paintings in which the artist featured
himself in an unusual and somewhat humorous manner entered Mayden’scollection together.
The early eighteenth-century provenance of Hunter Getting Dressed after
Bathing is unknown, but the picture reappeared in the collection of Lucas
Merens (1698–1776), a captain of the Dutch East India Company and mayorof the city of Hoorn. The Amsterdam art dealer Jan Spaan acquired Hunter
Getting Dressed after Bathing at Merens’s posthumous sale in 1778. Heprobably passed it on immediately to a foreign dealer, as no less than two
years later the painting featured in a collection catalogue of the Swiss
politician and writer François Tronchin.[14] Tronchin, who assembled a large
collection of Dutch paintings with the help of the French painter Jean-Étienne
Liotard (1702–89), was the author of his own collection catalogue. He
deserves credit for being the first to recognize Metsu’s self-portrait in thenude hunter.[15] The painting passed through six generations of the Tronchinfamily until it was sold with the estate in the early twentieth century.
Descriptions of Hunter Getting Dressed after Bathing in auction catalogues
and art historical literature have always focused on its idiosyncratic subject
matter. Tronchin’s catalogue is one of the few sources commenting on its
distinctive brushwork, describing it as “large & moëlleuse” (broad andsupple).[16] Indeed, one of the key characteristics of Metsu’s painting is the© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Hunter Getting Dressed after Bathing
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fluid technique, as seen in the hunter’s body, the architecture, and much of
the vegetation. Even more loosely painted are the landscape, the bridge, andthe clouds in the background. Metsu, however, strongly varied his brushwork
throughout the painting, and rendered the foreground still-life elements, suchas the fur of the dead hare and the ironwork on the rifle, with great
refinement. He used such differences in handling to create depth and to
focus the viewer’s attention.
The same variation in brushwork can be found in other works from themid-1650s, including A Cavalier Visiting a Blacksmith Shop.[17] Metsu
allowed the brownish ground to show through in both works and let it serve
as a base tone for the landscape and the architecture. Likewise, he left thecomposition’s preparatory sketch visible in some areas, including thevegetation in the bottom left. He worked up only the foreground in greater
detail, particularly the hunter, his clothes, and his dog. Another techniquecharacteristic of this period of Metsu’s career is the manner in which hecontoured forms in black to suggest shadows and to make objects stand out
against their respective backgrounds.
Finally, it is worth noting that Metsu placed more emphasis on the landscapein Hunter Getting Dressed after Bathing than he did in most of his otherpaintings. Aside from A Hunter Showing His Prey, only two other works, bothdating to the early years of his career, have such a prominent landscape.
These works represent Old Testament stories and are set in Italianate
landscapes that call to mind works by Utrecht painters.[18] Even though
Hunter Getting Dressed after Bathing depicts a Dutch landscape similar towhat the artist could have seen near Leiden, the setting is probably notbased on reality but rather is a creation of Metsu’s imagination.

- Adriaan Waiboer, 2017

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Endnotes

1. See Alan Chong’s discussion of the phenomenon of nude bathers in Dutch art in Peter C.
Sutton et al., Masters of 17th-Century Dutch Landscape Painting (Exh. cat. Amsterdam,
Rijksmuseum; Boston, Museum of Fine Arts; Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art)
(Boston, 1987), 389.
2. Bianca M. du Mortier, “Costumes in Gabriel Metsu’s Paintings: Mode and Manners in the
Mid-Seventeenth Century,” 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), 143–45.
3. Franklin W. Robinson, Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667): A Study of His Place in Dutch Genre
Painting of the Golden Age (New York, 1974), 29.
4. Comparisons can also be made with a number of other works in which Metsu assumed theguise of a high-class suitor courting an elegant lady, who can be identified as his wife,
Isabella de Wolff. See, for instance, Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A
Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven and London, 2012), 254–55, no. A-115; 268, no. A-128,
both ill.
5. Scott A. Sullivan, The Dutch Gamepiece (Montclair, N.J., 1984), 236.
6. Franklin W. Robinson, Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667): A Study of His Place in Dutch Genre
Painting of the Golden Age (New York, 1974), 29.
7. Eddy de Jongh, “Erotica in vogelperspectief: De dubbelzinnigheid van een reeks 17de
eeuwse genre-voorstellingen,” Simiolus 3 (1968–69): 22–43. Cesare Ripa (translated by Dirck
P. Pers), Iconologia, of uytbeeldingen des verstands […], trans. Dirck P. Pers (Amsterdam,
1644), 144, even mentioned that partridges were particularly wild during mating and therefore
highly suitable for artists to symbolize unbridled lust. For Metsu’s paintings, see Adriaan E.
Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven and London,2012), 207–8, no. A-64; 217, no. A-74; 265–66, no. A-125, all ill.
8. “Jager: Ick jaegh de Haes op barre Heyden . . . Vryer: En ick seer gaern in donckere nollen”(Hunter: I hunt the hare on barren heath . . . Lover: And I like to do so very much in darkholes). Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal, 23 vols. (The Hague and Leiden, 1882–1987),
7:5253. Roemer Visscher, Brabbelingh (Amsterdam, ca. 1600), 91.
9. Eric Jan Sluijter, ed., Leidse Fijnschilders: Van Gerrit Dou tot Frans van Mieris de Jonge,
1630–1760 (Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) (Zwolle, 1988), 161–62.
10. Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven andLondon, 2012), 32.
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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11. Franklin W. Robinson, Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667): A Study of His Place in Dutch Genre
Painting of the Golden Age (New York, 1974), 30; Eric Jan Sluijter in Leidse Fijnschilders:
Van Gerrit Dou tot Frans van Mieris de Jonge, 1630–1760, ed. Eric Jan Sluijter (Exh. cat.
Leiden, Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) (Zwolle, 1988), 255–57, no. 91, ill.
12. Amsterdam City Archives, Desolate Boedelkamer 396, fol. 40v (Getty Provenance Index,
Inventory Contents, PI inv. no. N-323). Sebastiaan A. C. Dudok van Heel, Van Amsterdamse
burgers tot Europese aristocraten: Hun geschiedenis en hun portretten; De Heijnenmaagschap 1400–1800 (The Hague, 2008), 718–19.
13. Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven andLondon, 2012), 29–31.
14. François Tronchin, Catalogue des tableaux de mon Cabinet (Geneva, 1780), 34.
15. François Tronchin, Catalogue des tableaux de mon Cabinet (Geneva, 1780), 34: “Metzu
sortant du bain au retour de la chasse.”
16. “la touche en est large & moëlleuse; de même que de tous les accessoires dont Metzu a faitle tableau le plus imposant par sa couleur vigoureuse, & son merveilleux effet.” François
Tronchin, Catalogue des tableaux de mon Cabinet (Geneva, 1780), 34.
17. For a detailed analysis of the painting techniques employed by Metsu in A Cavalier Visiting aBlacksmith Shop, see 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), 161–63.
18. Franklin W. Robinson, Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667): A Study of His Place in Dutch Genre
Painting of the Golden Age (New York, 1974), 19; Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life
and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven and London, 2012), 157, no. A-6 (Lot and His
Daughters); 169, no. A-10 (The Dismissal of Hagar), both ill. The Dismissal of
Hagar constitutes Metsu’s direct response to Jan Baptist Weenix’s views of the
Italian campagna.

Provenance
Probably Thomas Mayden, Amsterdam, by 1662 (his inventory, 29 October 1662).
Lucas Merens, Hoorn (his sale, Ploos van Amstel, Hendrik de Winter, and Jan Yver,
Amsterdam, 15 April 1778, no. 60 [to Jan Spaan for 52 guilders; Lebrun, Paris, by 1780]).
François Tronchin des Délices, Bessinge, by 1780, for 4,000 “livres” (his sale, Constantin
and Boileau, 23–24 March 1801, no. 110); by descent to Jean-Louis Robert Tronchin,© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Hunter Getting Dressed after Bathing
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Bessinge; by descent to Armand Henri Tronchin, Bessinge; by descent to Louis-Rémy Nosky
Tronchin, Bessinge; by descent to Henry Tronchin, Bessinge; by descent to Robert Tronchin,
Bessinge, 1928.
Xavier Givaudan, Bessinge (who purchased the paintings collection with the domain), by
1938; by descent to André Givaudan, Bessinge, by 1974.
(Sale, Lord Chetwode et. al., anonymous part, Christie’s, London, 12 December 1980, no.
110; anonymous sale, Koller, Zürich, 15–16 May, 1981, no. 5088).
Jean Charles Lignel (his sale, Jean Claude Anaf, Lyon, 20 October 1991, no. 59).
Private collection, United States [Otto Naumann Ltd, New York, 2007].
From whom acquired by the present owner.

Exhibition History
Geneva, Musée Rath, “Anciens maitres exposés au Musée Rath,” July 1850, no. 29 [lent by
the Tronchin family].
Geneva, Musée Rath, “De Genève à l’Ermitage: Les collections de François Tronchin,” 21June–15 September 1974, no. 151 [lent by André Givaudan, Bessinge].
Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, “Gabriel Metsu,” 4 September–5 December 2010;
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, 16 December 2010–21 March 2011; Washington, National Galleryof Art, 17 April–24 July 2011, no. 35 [lent by the present owner].
Rotterdam, Kunsthal Rotterdam, “Sweet and Salt: Water and the Dutch,” 14 February–10
June 2012 [lent by the present owner].
Ithaca, Cornell University, Herbert F. Johnson Museum, “An Eye for Detail: Dutch Painting
from the Leiden Collection,” 20 September 2014–21 June 2015 [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 [lentby the present owner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of 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 The Leiden Collection,” 5 September 2018–13 January 2019 [lent by thepresent owner].
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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

References
Tronchin, François. Catalogue des tableaux de mon Cabinet. Geneva, 1780, 34.
Tronchin, François. Catalogue raisonné du Cabinet de tableaux de feu Monsieur François
Tronchin des Délices, ancient Conseiller d’Etat de la République de Genève. Fait par luimême. Geneva, 1798, 69.
Blanc, Charles. Histoire des Peintres de toutes les écoles: école hollandaise. 2 vols. Paris,
1861, 1:12.
Rigaud, Jean-Jacques. Renseignements sur les Beaux-Arts à Genève. Geneva, 1876, 336.
Tronchin, Henry. Le conseiller François Tronchin et ses amis. Paris, 1895, 251–52, 255 n. 4.
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch
Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith. Edited and translatedby Edward G. Hawke, 1:326–27, no. 221. 8 vols. London, 1907–28. Originally published as
Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen
Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28.
Crosnier, Jules. “Bessinge.” Nos anciens et leurs oeuvres: receuil genevois d’art 8 (1908):
84–86.
Fatio, Guillaume. Genève et les Pays-Bas. Geneva, 1928, 124.
Robinson, Franklin W. Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667): A Study of His Place in Dutch Genre
Painting of the Golden Age. New York, 1974, 29–30, 78–79, 117, fig. 33.
Roethlisberger, Marcel. “The Tronchin Collection at Geneva [Review].” Burlington
Magazine 66 (1974): 552, 554.
Ingamells, John. The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of Pictures: IV, Dutch and Flemish.
London, 1992, 207 n. 7.
Kleinmann, Ute. “Rahmen und Gerahmtes: Das Spiel mit Darstellung und Bedeutung, Eine
Untersuchung des illusionistischen Rahmenmotivs im Oeuvre Gerrit Dous.” PhD diss.
University of Bochum, 1992 / Frankfurt am Main, 1996, 151 n. 537.
Fredericksen, Burton B., and Benjamin Peronnet et al., eds. Répertoire des tableaux vendus
en France au XIXe siècle. Los Angeles, 1998, 683.
Waiboer, Adriaan E. “Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667), Life and Work.” vols. PhD diss. New York
University, 2007, 1: 140, 144, 146, 549–51, no. A-65, 4:1114.
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Waiboer, Adriaan E. “Gabriel Metsu’s Life, Work, and Reputation.” In Gabriel
by Adriaan E. Waiboer, 6. Exh. cat. Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland; Amsterdam,
Rijksmuseum; Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art. New Haven, 2010.
Roelofs, Pieter. “Early Owners of Paintings by Metsu in Leiden and Amsterdam.” In Gabriel
Metsu. Edited by Adriaan E. Waiboer, 112, 117, no. 82. Exh. cat. Dublin, National Gallery of
Ireland; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; Washington, D.C. National Gallery of Art. New Haven,2010.
Du Mortier, Bianca. “Costumes in Gabriel Metsu’s Paintings: Mode and Manners in the MidSeventeenth Century.” In Gabriel Metsu. Edited by Adriaan E. Waiboer, 143–44, 142, no.
102. Exh. cat. Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; Washington, D.
C., National Gallery of Art. New Haven, 2010.
Waiboer, Adriaan E. Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné. New Haven andLondon, 2012, 30, 174, no. A-18.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Rembrandt and His Time: China and the Dutch Republic in theGolden Age.” In Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Editedby Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 10; 15, no. 51. Translated by Li Ying. Exh. cat. Beijing, National
Museum of China. Beijing, 2017
McCarthy, Alexa. “Hunter Getting Dressed after Bathing.” In Rembrandt and His Time:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 122–23; 184, no.
51. 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 from The Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund.
Shanghai, 2017, 154–55.
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.
McCarthy, Alexa. “Hunter Getting Dressed after Bathing.” In The Age of Rembrandt andVermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 120–21; 236,
no. 27. 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 and the 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 andArabic.]Ducos, Blaise, and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, eds. Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Exh. cat. Abu
Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019, 178–79, no. 92. [Exhibition catalogue also publishedin French and Arabic.]

Technical Summary
The support, a single plank of horizontal, wavy-grained, rectangular, non-Baltic oak, has bevels
on all four sides.[1] The wavy grain is visually pronounced through the sky. There are two coatings
along the uncradled panel reverse: a textured brown radio-opaque layer followed by a white wax
layer. The brown layer has been applied with 2 cm-wide horizontal and diagonal brushwork. A
black stencil and a paper label have been applied over the brown lead layer. The white wax layer
extends over the stencil and label. No machine toolmarks, import stamps or panel maker’s markare visible through the coatings.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied. There is a narrow raised vertical line ofground 0.5 cm into the face of the painting, along the upper right corner. The paint has been
applied smoothly in thin layers with low brushmarking and transparent glazing, light over dark.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers.
Although the brushwork of the brown layer applied to the panel reverse makes the X-radiographdifficult to read, there is no indication of the foliage above the diagonal roofline in the upper left
corner and the small figure and bridge handrails in the background, which are visible in theinfrared images.
The painting is signed in dark paint along the brown wooden gunstock along the lower center ofthe composition but is undated.
The painting was cleaned and restored in 2007 and remains in a good state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. Thecharacterization

of

wood

is

by

Ian

Tyers,

independent

consultant,

Arcus

Dendrochronology, Sheffield, England, who kindly examined the X-radiograph and offered his
expert opinion via email.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection