Smoker Seated at a Table
Gabriel Metsu(Leiden 1629 – 1667 Amsterdam)ca. 1654–57
oil on copper
22.4 x 18.8 cm
signed in dark paint along background, upper
left corner: “G.Metsùe”
GM-111© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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How to cite
Waiboer, Adriaan. “Smoker Seated at a Table” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed. Edited byArthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/a-smoker-seated-at-atable/ (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 narrativeoccurs.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Gabriel Metsu used almost exclusively canvas supports during his earlyComparative Figures

years in Leiden, but preferred small oak panels during his mature career inAmsterdam. Only once did he choose a copper support, in 1654–57, when
he painted Smoker Seated at a Table. The smooth surface of this relatively
soft but durable metal allowed him to employ a more meticulous techniquethan in his earlier paintings. Indeed, Smoker Seated at a Table marks asignificant step in Metsu’s artistic evolution during his first years inAmsterdam, at which time he gradually abandoned the fluid brushwork
characteristic of Jan Baptist Weenix (1621–60/61) in favor of the morerefined and softer technique of Gerrit Dou (1613–75). Although Metsu’stechnique here does not match the delicacy of Dou’s manner of painting orthat of his own highly finished paintings from later in his career, Smoker
Seated at a Table reflects his deliberate move towards “fine” painting in theLeiden manner.[1] Metsu painted in this way either to meet an existingFig 1. Detail of Gabriel Metsu, AWoman Offering a Glass of Wineto a Man, 1658–60, oil on canvas,
40.6 x 35.5 cm, private collection

demand for “fine” paintings in Amsterdam or to create a market for suchworks on his own accord.[2]The painting represents a middle-aged bearded man who sits at a tableenjoying a smoke. He holds his pipe upside down to light the tobacco bydipping it into the burning coals in an earthenware brazier. The small blackboard with an arched top in the left background indicates that the setting is atavern. Innkeepers and serving staff used such slate panels to tally theircustomers’ drinks, as can be seen in the background of Metsu’s A Woman
Offering a Glass of Wine to a Man (fig 1). The smoker who, to judge from his
woolen suit and round hat, is a farmer, has already been served his beer in awhite tankard that rests on his table.[3] He looks out at the viewer with abrazen yet sympathetic gaze, not unlike that of the bearded figure in Public

Fig 2. Gabriel Metsu, An Old Man
Holding a Pipe and a Jug,1661–63, oil on panel, 22 x 19.5cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, SKA-250

Notary (GM-101), which Metsu had completed a few years earlier.
The present painting belongs to a long tradition of Dutch and Flemish imagesof men drinking and smoking in a tavern—paintings commonly seen incollectors’ homes, the shops of art dealers, and the workshops of otherpainters. Metsu depicted this subject no less than five times, the mostrenowned of which is An Old Man Holding a Pipe and a Jug from themid-1650s (fig 2).[4] Metsu’s depictions of older men and women engaged intheir individual activities owes much to Dou, who had featured elderly people
in many of his early paintings.[5] Unlike other of Metsu’s works, however,neither the composition nor the male figure in this painting has a precedent inDou’s works. In fact, the man’s facial features do not even reappear in otherpaintings by Metsu, which raises the possibility that Smoker Seated at aFig 3. Gabriel Metsu, A Woman
with a Jug and a Man with a Pipe,
1654–57, oil on canvas, 33 x 29.2cm, Cheltenham Art Gallery and© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Table is a genre-like portrait.
The coloration of Smoker Seated at a Table relates closely to Metsu’s otherearly Amsterdam paintings, among them A Woman with a Jug and a Man

Museum, Cheltenham, Baron deFerrières bequest, 1898, ©
Cheltenham Art Gallery &Museums, Gloucestershire, UK /Bridgeman Images

with a Pipe (fig 3). During this period of his career Metsu characteristicallyset off flesh tones, whites and areas of bright color, often bluish-greens ororange-reds, against a gray background. In A Woman with a Jug and a Manwith a Pipe, the woman’s apron is the single coloristic focal point, whereas
in Smoker Seated at a Table it is the rim of the man’s hat. Metsu’ssensitivity toward color is evident in the way he has here modulated the graytonality of the painting with the browns of the earthenware brazier, thewooden table, and the upholstery of the chair.
Smoker Seated at a Table includes a number of objects that appear insome of Metsu’s other paintings. The table, for example, is seen in several
later works, including A Man Offering a Glass of Wine to a Woman, which
Metsu completed in 1667, the last year of his life.[6] It is likely that the artist
owned this piece of furniture. The same is probably true for the earthenware
brazier and the white jug. Although the same chimney does not feature inother paintings, it does resemble those in other of Metsu’s early Amsterdamworks, including A Woman with a Jug and a Man with a Pipe.
Metsu signed Smoker Seated at a Table in the top left corner with an
unusual signature: G.Metsùe. The artist generally inscribed his name
GMetsu or Gmetsu (G and m in ligature), but he added an E to his name ineleven extant works. Most of these date from the last few years of hislife.[7] What may have prompted him to vary his signature is unknown. Someof the artist’s distant family members are also known to have signed theirname Metsue.[8] It should be noted that consistency in spelling was not asimportant in the seventeenth century as it is today, and people often wrote
their names in different ways.

- Adriaan Waiboer, 2017

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Smoker Seated at a Table
Page 5 of 8Endnotes

1. It should be noted that, as far as we know, Dou always painted on wood panels and neverused copper supports.
2. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Review of Robinson 1974,” Art Bulletin 58 (1976): 458, alreadymentioned that Dou’s influence on Metsu’s early Amsterdam paintings may have been “aresponse to a market in Amsterdam for Dou-like paintings.” See also Adriaan E. Waiboer,Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven, 2012), 33.
3. I am grateful to Marieke de Winkel for her observations about the identification of the sitter asa farmer on the basis of his clothes: personal communication, 2000.
4. For more on this painting, see Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: ACatalogue Raisonné (New Haven, 2012), 105–6, 243–44, no. A-101, ill.; for Metsu’s otherpaintings of smoking man, see ibid., 197, no. A-51; 198, no. A-52; 245, no. A-103, all ill.
5. Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven,2012), 33–43.
6. Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven,2012), 198, no. A-52; 272, no. A-133, both ill.
7. Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven,2012), 249, no. A-107; 252, no. A-111; 253, no. A-112; 253–54, no. A-113; 255, no. A-116;
259, no. A-118; 264–65, no. A-124; 268, no. A-128; 271–72, no. A-132; 272, no. A-133.
8. See Jan Briels, Vlaamse schilders en de dageraad van Hollands Gouden Eeuw,
1585–1630 (Antwerp, 1997), 359 (under J. Metsu), note 2.

ProvenanceCount de Dubarry (his sale, Pierre Rémy and P. le Brun, Paris, 21 November 1774, no. 33 [toLe Brun for 240 francs]).
De Ghendt (his sale, Basan and Guilleaumon, Paris, 15 November 1779, no. 73 [to Langlierfor 300 francs]);
Gustaf Adolf Sparre (1746–94), Sahlgren-Sparre Palace, Gothenburg or Kulla Gunnarstorp,
near Helsingborg; by descent to his widow, Elisabeth Sofia Amalia Beata Sparre (néeRamel), Kulla Gunnarstorp, died 1830; by descent to her grandson Gustaf Adolf de la Gardie(1800–33); by descent to his father Jacob Gustaf de la Gardie (1768–1842).
Count Carl de Geer af Leufstra (1781–1861), (who purchased Kulla Gunnarstorp in 1837 and© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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the entire Sparre collection by ca. 1840); by descent to his granddaughter, 1855, and moved,with the entire collection, to her house at Vänas, Knislinge, Southern Sweden.
Count Carl-Axel Wachtmeister (1921–2011), Vänas, Knislinge.
(Sale, Christie’s London, 14 December 1990, no. 122, bought in; sale, Christie’s London, 13December 1991, no. 43, bought in).
(Sale, Sotheby’s, London, 5 December 2007, no. 8; [Johnny van Haeften, London, 2007]).
From whom acquired by the present owner.

Exhibition History
Stockholm, Bukowski, “Äldre mästares taflor ur Svenska privatsamlingar,” May–June 1884,”
no. 109 [lent by Count Wachtmeister, Vanås].
Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, “Holländska Mästare I Svensk Ägo,” 3 March–30 April 1967,
no. 99 [lent by Count Wachtmeister, Vanås].
Kristianstad, Kristianstads Museum, “Ur Gustav Adolf Sparres konstsamling på Wanås,” 12February–6 March 1977, no. 26 [lent by Count Wachtmeister, Vanås].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from TheLeiden 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 presentowner].
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].

References
Göthe, Georg. Tafvelsamlingen pa? Wana?s. Stockholm, 1895, no. 41.
Granberg, Olof. Catalogue raisonné de tableaux anciens inconnus jusqu’ici dans lescollections privées de la Suede. Stockholm, 1886, 23, no. 39.
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith. Edited and translatedby Edward G. Hawke, 1: 318–19, no. 201. 8 vols. London, 1907–28. Originally published asBeschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen
Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907–18.
Granberg, Olof. Inventaire général des trésors d’art: Peintures & sculptures, principalement
de maîtres étrangers (non Scandinaves). 3 vols. Stockholm, 1911–13, 1: 82, no. 375; 2: fig.
21.
Gudlaugsson, Sturla J. “Kanttekeningen bij de ontwikkeling van Metsu.” Oud Holland 83(1968):
26 n. 28.
Kjellberg, Sven T. Slott och herresäten i Sverige. 18 vols. Malmö, 1966–71, 3:344, ill.
opposite 336, 340.
Hasselgren, Ingmar. Konstsamlaren Gustaf Adolf Sparre, 1746–1794: Hans studieresa,
vaaning och konstsamling i Goeteborg. Goeteborg, 1974, 117, 127, 180.
Robinson, Franklin W. Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667): A Study of His Place in Dutch Genre
Painting of the Golden Age. New York, 1974, 48, fig. 111.
Waiboer, Adriaan E. “Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667), Life and Work.” 4 vols. PhD diss. New
York University, 2007, 1: 108–9, 408, no. A-18, 4:1067.
Waiboer, Adriaan E. Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné.. New Haven andLondon, 2012, 40, 179, no. A-26.
McCarthy, Alexa. “Smoker Seated at a Table.” In Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces
from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 114; 183, no. 47. Translated byLi 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, 160.
McCarthy, Alexa. “Smoker Seated at a Table.” In The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 122–23; 237, no. 28.
Translated by Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State Museumof Fine Arts; St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.

Technical Summary
The support, a rectangular, rolled sheet of copper, has substantial weight and does not flex whenhandled.[1] There are no indentations or undulation and the support remains perfectly in plane.
There are two layers of oxidation products, a continuous brown layer and mottled black spots.
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There are six labels and one black stencil but no wax collection seals or maker’s marks.
A light gray ground has been thinly and evenly applied. The figure’s face was laid in with a free
underpaint, which remains exposed along the corners of the eye and nose, followed by delicately
blended final paint built up with fine strokes.[2]No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers. The
images and a pentimento indicate the top of the figure’s hat was made taller and altered during
the paint stage to create two diagonal angles and a less rounded shape.
The painting is signed in dark paint along the background in the upper left corner but is undated.
The painting was cleaned and restored in 2008 and remains in a good state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. According to Isabel Horovitz, Copper as Canvas: Two Centuries of Masterpiece Paintings on
Copper, 1575–1775 (New York, 1999), 67–68, “a highly worked sheet of copper will be lessflexible than one that is not highly worked, and this is why quite thin (0.5 mm) sheets ofcopper can provide such excellent rigid supports for paint films.”
2. According to 2009 examination notes by E. Melanie Gifford, Scientific Department, National
Gallery of Art, Washington.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection