Woman Reading
WindowaBook

Gabriel Metsu(Leiden 1629 – 1667 Amsterdam)

byaca. 1653–54
oil on canvas
105 x 90.7 cm
signed in dark paint on white letter, left of red
plume: “[F?] Gabriel/Metsu”
GM-105Currently on view at: Sterling and Francine
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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How To Cite
Waiboer, Adriaan. "Woman Reading a Book by a Window." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited byArthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/.
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Gabriel Metsu, like a number of other Dutch artists renowned for theirComparative Figures

domestic scenes and high-life interiors, began his career painting anentirely different type of subject. Metsu initially painted subjects drawn
from the bible or mythology, much as did Nicolaes Maes (1634–93) andJohannes Vermeer (1632–75). Another artist who shifted from one genre
to another was Pieter de Hooch (1629–84), who depicted guardroom
scenes before switching to domestic subjects. For none of these young
masters did the change from one subject type to another occur overnight.
Their thematic and stylistic evolution was an ongoing process as theylearned to balance their artistic aspirations, inherent strengths, and thechanging character of the art market. Vermeer’s Procuress of 1656 is acase in point, for it relates both to genre and history painting traditions.
Even though this painting appears, at first glance, to be a merry company
scene, it has thematic connections to the parable of the Prodigal

Fig 1. Ferdinand Bol, A Woman
at a Window, early 1650s, oil oncanvas, 100 x 84.5 cm, State
Hermitage Museum, St.
Petersburg, inv. 769

Son.[1] Similarly, Woman Reading a Book by a Window , which dates tothe artist’s late Leiden period, about 1653–54, is a transitional piece in
Metsu’s career. While this large picture appears to be a scene drawn fromdaily life, it probably derives from a literary or allegorical source.
In this painting, Metsu has depicted a life-sized woman seated next to an
open window. Leaning on a small table covered with a striped carpet, shestares out into the world as though contemplating an idea she has justtaken from the text of the open book before her.[2] Her distinctive
wardrobe—a voluminous rusty-red cloak, loose-fitting white shirt, andblack feathered beret—would have indicated to a seventeenth-century
viewer that she was not a contemporary Dutch sitter, but a figure drawn
from a different time and place. Metsu’s painting, in fact, calls to mind

Fig 2. Salomon de Bray, Portraitof a Woman as Semiramis(?),
1652, oil on panel, 99.5 x 83.5
cm, Frans Hals Museum,Haarlem, OS I-687

works by Ferdinand Bol (1616–80) from the early 1650s that depict
attractive female figures in “antique” attire, which may best be describedas half-length tronies (fig 1).[3] An even closer comparison can be madewith a painting dated 1652 by the Haarlem artist Salomon de Bray(1597–1664), which is a portrait historié of a woman probably in the guiseof Semiramis (fig 2).[4] The similarities in costume between the women in
Metsu’s and De Bray’s paintings are striking; however, the large bookmakes it unlikely that Metsu’s sitter also depicts the Assyrian queen.[5]Rather than a half-length tronie or a portrait historié, Metsu’s woman
probably represents an allegorical figure. Seventeenth-century artists
frequently

modernizedtraditional

allegories

byplacingtheminFig 3. Gabriel Metsu,Moneylender Visited by a
Weeping Woman, 1654, oil oncanvas, 74 x 67.2 cm, Museum ofFine Arts, Boston, Sydney Bartlett
bequest, 89.501© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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contemporary interiors, as, for example, did Jan Miense Molenaer(1610–68) in A Lady at Her Toilet (Lady World) and Vermeer in Allegoryof Faith.[6] When painting allegorical figures, Dutch artists generally
consulted Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia (1593), an influential emblem bookthat explains how abstract concepts, such as virtues and vices, could bepersonified. Ripa published the first edition of his seminal work in Italian inRome in 1593, but Metsu was likely familiar with the Dutch edition, which
had been translated by Dirck Pers in 1644. Ripa’s book describes andillustrates various female personifications with books, including Wisdom,Philosophy, Rhetoric, Eloquence, and Knowledge.[7] Ripa, however,always includes additional attributes with these personifications, among
them a birdcage or a torch, that are not to be found in Metsu’spainting.[8] Hence, even though it seems probable that Metsu intended hisfemale figure to be an allegorical personification of an abstract concept
related to learning or knowledge, it is not yet possible to interpret exactly
his intent.
Woman Reading a Book by a Window occupies a significant place in
Metsu’s early artistic development. It is the earliest surviving painting inwhich the artist depicted a contemporary Dutch interior. Prior to this time,
Metsu had painted only outdoor scenes and imaginary interiors ofsandstone palaces, churches and brothels. Although this interior serves
only as a backdrop to the figure, the setting is comparable to those
depicted by other Leiden genre painters of the mid-seventeenth century.
These generally focus on the left corner of a shallow room with the backwall running parallel to the picture plane and a window that allows naturallight to illuminate the interior. Confident with what he had achieved in
Woman Reading a Book by a Window, Metsu went a step further in A
Moneylender Visited by a Weeping Woman (fig 3), which shows a larger
and more elaborate interior.
Metsu signed this painting Gabriel/Metsu on a letter stuck in a window bar
behind the woman’s head. It is only one of two works that the artist
inscribed with his full name. The other painting, A Woman Giving Alms toa Boy, dates to 1657–59.[9] Metsu usually signed his works Gmetsu (Gand m in ligature) or G.Metsu.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Woman Reading a Book by a Window
Page 5 of 9-Adriaan Waiboer© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Woman Reading a Book by a Window
Page 6 of 9Endnotes
1. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Jan Vermeer (New York, 1981), 70, ill., suggested that the biblicalsubject of the Prodigal Son underlies Vermeer’s Procuress, 1656, oil on canvas,
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden.
2. It is impossible to decipher the text of the book. Adri Mackor, who is preparing a doctoral
dissertation (University of Ghent) on the work of Marinus van Reymerswaele (ca. 1490–ca.
1546) and who has developed a proficiency in reading inscriptions on painted documents,
has not been able to read the words either (personal communication, 2013). The same or asimilar striped carpet appears in other Metsu works of the mid-1650s, including A
Moneylender Visited by a Weeping Woman (fig. 3), and two versions of A Woman at HerToilet (see Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné [NewHaven and London, 2012], 180, nos. A-28, A-29, both ill.).
3. For Bol’s other paintings, see Albert Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680): Rembrandt’s
Pupil (Doornspijk, 1982), 141, no. 134, pl. 143; no. 135, pl. 144; no. 136, pl. 143.
4. On De Bray’s painting and the identification of the woman as possibly being Semiramis, see
Pieter Biesboer, ed., Painting Family: The De Brays, Master Painters of 17th-Century
Holland (Exh. cat. Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum; London, Dulwich Picture Gallery) (Haarlemand London, 2008), 51–52.
5. Further indicating that Woman Reading a Book by a Window is not a portrait is the fact thatthe woman is a figure type Metsu included often in his early works, among them A
Moneylender Visited by a Weeping Woman (fig. 3). Franklin W. Robinson, Gabriel Metsu(1629–1667): A Study of His Place in Dutch Genre Painting of the Golden Age (New York,1974), 19, proposed that the painting is probably a portrait of a woman in extravagant dress.
6. For Molenaer’s painting’s, see Dennis P. Weller, ed., Jan Miense Molenaer: Painter of theDutch Golden Age (Exh. cat. Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art; Columbus,
Indianapolis Museum of Art; Manchester, N.H., Currier Museum of Art) (Raleigh, 2002),
100–2, no. 12, ill.; for Vermeer’s painting, see Walter Liedtke, Dutch Paintings in The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2 vols (New York, 2007), 2:893–902, no. 206, ill.
7. Cesare Ripa, Iconologia, of uytbeeldingen des verstands […] , trans. Dirck P. Pers(Amsterdam, 1644), 273 (Cognitione); 406 (Philosophia); 435 (Rettorica); 595 (Eloquenza);
620–21 (Sapienza).
8. For example, Cesare Ripa, Iconologia, of uytbeeldingen des verstands […] , trans. Dirck P.
Pers (Amsterdam, 1644), 595, describes Eloquenza as a woman dressed in red (likeMetsu’s woman), but also mentions that she is depicted with an hourglass and a birdcage
with a parrot on top of it. Ripa mentions that Cognitione requires a torch not only to see what
she is reading, but also to illuminate her intellect (ibid., 273). Perhaps Metsu modernized the© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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scene by replacing the torch with an open window, which allows the natural light of the sun toserve as her source of physical and spiritual illumination.
9. Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven andLondon, 2012), 207, no. A-63, ill.

Provenance(Sale, H. D. G. de Marée and W. Horstink, Haarlem, 12 May 1817, no. 96 [for 260 florins toEngesmet]).
A. B. Roothaan, Amsterdam (his sale, De Vries … Roos, Amsterdam, 29 March 1826, no. 56[for 71 florins to Héris]).
Comte F. de Robiano (1778–1836), Brussels (his sale, Brussels, 1 May 1837, no. 439 [for630 francs to Guillaume van Callenbergh]).
Charles Scarisbrick (1800–61), Lancashire (his sale, Christie’s, London, 24–25 May 1861,
no. 91, as A. G. Metzu [for £35.14 pounds to Peane]).
[Kleinberger Galleries, Paris and New York, by June 1922; Riesler; Kunsthandel Z. M.
Hackenbroch, Frankfurt, before 1925].
Dr. Albert Hahn (1889–1968), Frankfurt, by 1925; by descent to the heirs of Hahn (sale,Christie’s, London, 7 December 2006, no. 3 [Johnny van Haeften, Ltd., London, 2006]).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2006.

Exhibition History
Frankfurt, Städelsches Kunstinstitut, “Ausstellung von Meisterwerken alter Malerei aus
Privatbesitz,” Summer 1925, no. 138 [lent by Dr. Albert Hahn].
Kyoto, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, “Communication: Visualizing the Human Connectionin the Age of Vermeer,” 25 June–16 October 2011; Miyagi, Miyagi Museum of Art, 27October–12 December 2011; Tokyo, Bunkamura Museum of Art, 23 December 2011–14
March 2012, no. 26 [lent by the present owner].
Williamstown, The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, “An Inner World: SeventeenthCentury Dutch Genre Painting,” 5 March–17 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].

© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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References
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelius. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent
Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith.

8 vols.

London, 1907–27, 1:275, no. 72. Translated from Beschreibendes und kritischesVerzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts.
10 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28.
Swarzenski, Georg. Ausstellung von Meisterwerken alter Malerei aus Privatbesitz . Exh. cat.
Frankfurt, Städelsches Kunstinstitut. Frankfurt, 1925, 47–48, no. 138.
Waldman, Emil. “Leih-Ausstellung von Gemälde Alter Meister aus Frankfurter Privatbesitz.”
Künst und Künstler 23 (1925): 482, 484–85.
Plietzsch, Eduard. “Gabriel Metsu.” Pantheon 17 (1936): 6, 8.
Robinson, Franklin W. Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667): A Study of His Place in Dutch Genre
Painting of the Golden Age. New York, 1974, 19, 106, fig. 8.
Waiboer, Adriaan E. “Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667): Life and Work.” 4 vols. Ph.D. diss. New
York University, 2007, 1:97–98, 396–98, no. A-13, 4:1062.
Waiboer, Adriaan E. “A Woman at a Book with a Window.” InCommunication: Visualizing
the Human Connection in the Age of Vermeer.

Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. andDaniëlle H. A. C. Lokin. Exh. cat. Kyoto, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art; Miyagi, Miyagi
Museum of Art; Tokyo, Bunkamura Museum of Art. London, 2011, 96–97, no. 26.
Waiboer, Adriaan E. Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné.

New Havenand London, 2012, 26, 171, no. A-14.

Technical Summary
The support, a single piece of medium-weight, plain-weave fabric with tacking margins removed,
has been lined. The upper edge has been cut and forms three arched lobes of varying widths.
Diagonal-weave fabric inserts have been added to both upper corners to create a rectangularformat. The support has been lined as a rectangle, and the composition has been extended onto
the inserts.[1] There are two stencils, three import stamps, and white chalk numerals but no wax
collection seals along the lining or stretcher.
The 48.5 cm-wide central arch over the figure’s head is cut straight horizontally at the midpoint.
The left arch is 26 cm wide and the right arch 15 cm wide. Cusping visible in the X-radiographalong the entire right vertical edge but not the left suggests the right side of the composition has
not been altered in width, and it is unlikely that the two outer arches were ever of similar widths.
Pronounced cusping along the lower edge and slight cusping along the center of the upper edge
suggest the composition has not been significantly altered in height.
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A light-colored radio-opaque ground has been thinly and evenly applied. The paint has been
applied smoothly aside from the white drapery and books, which have been applied in low
impasto with visible brushwork. Dark passages along the figure’s red drapery and red hat plumeare reticulated and appear medium rich.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images at 780–1000 nanometers. The images
suggest a slight shift in position of the figure’s profile, from her proper right eye to between herlips, and to the swag of hair cascading down her proper left shoulder.
The painting is signed in dark paint along the white letter tucked along the ironwork of thewindow to the left of the red plume of the figure’s hat. The letter with the flourish that precedes“Gabriel” is indistinct. The painting is undated.
The painting was cleaned and restored in 2007 and remains in an excellent state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. If the lining is removed or replaced, stretcher bar marks along the support reverse may
reveal valuable information regarding its original shape.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection