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Public Notary
Gabriel Metsu(Leiden 1629 – 1667 Amsterdam)ca. 165(3?)
oil on panel
41 x 32.5 cm
inscribed and dated in light-colored paint on
sign, lower left: “openbaer Notarus /165[3?]”GM-101

How to cite
Waiboer, Adriaan. “Public Notary” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed. Edited by Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/a-public-notary/ (archived May2020).
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.

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An old man with a full gray beard and wearing a red cloak stares directly at

Comparative Figures

the viewer as he leans out of an arched window set into a brownish-graystone building. His large, boney hands hold open a folio containing a numberof loose sheets of paper, as well as an official document with attached wax
seals. On the wooden sign hanging below the open shutter is an inscriptionthat reads openbaer Notarus (public notary). The sign also bears the year inwhich Gabriel Metsu completed the picture, one of only fourteen extant
paintings that are dated.[1] Unfortunately, the last digit is almost illegible andcannot be clearly read.
Given the painting’s stylistic similarities to Christ and the Woman Taken in
Adultery in the Musée du Louvre, 1653 (fig 1), it seems probable that Metsu
executed this work in the same year.[2] The Louvre painting is a large biblicalFig 1. Gabriel Metsu, Christ andthe Woman Taken in Adultery,1653, oil on canvas, 134 x 165 cm,Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. 1459,
Photo: Jean-Gilles Beirizzi, ©
RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource,NYscene on canvas, rather than a single-figure painting on panel, but it has acomparable palette consisting of brownish-gray colors combined with distinct
areas of red and white. Moreover, the facial type and posture of the notarywith his raised shoulders is identical to that of the central Pharisee. Finally,
the two paintings include finely executed large folios, documents and sealssimilar to those that appear in other of Metsu’s works from around 1653–54,
including another depiction of the same notary and Woman Reading a Bookby a Window (GM-105).[3]Public Notary dates from the early period of Metsu’s career when he wasactive in his native Leiden. During these years he painted mostly on large
canvases, depicting subjects drawn from the bible and mythology such as in
the Louvre painting, or from farcical literature and popular culture. The small
scale and panel support of Public Notary are quite exceptional, and this workFig 2. Gerrit Dou, A Painter with aPipe and a Book, ca. 1645–50, oilon panel, 48 x 37 cm,Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, SKA-86

seems to be the first instance in which Metsu responded to the work of Gerrit
Dou (1613–75).
Metsu’s prime source of inspiration seems to have been Dou’s A Painter witha Pipe and a Book, ca. 1645, where a man, holding an open book, similarlyleans out of an open window and stares at the viewer (fig 2). In each work,
moreover, the artist has provided textual information on an object
illusionistically nailed to the architecture surrounding the window opening:
Dou inscribed his signature on a piece of paper nailed to the stone frame,
while Metsu identified the man’s profession and date on the wooden board.
The subject of a notary or lawyer appears occasionally in Dutch genre
paintings of the seventeenth century, but most of these works are somewhat
comical in character. Rooted in a tradition stretching back to mid-sixteenth© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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century peasant scenes, they depict arrogant lawyers cheating their gullible
rural clients.[4] Other paintings, including a number of works by Adriaen vanOstade (1610–85) from the end of his career, portray lawyers and notaries ina more dignified manner, often studying documents alone in their offices.[5]Metsu also rendered his notary respectably, but in a different manner, almost
as though he were soliciting business from the window of his office.
Whether or not Metsu portrayed an actual individual is not known; however,
he did have a personal relationship with a notary in the early 1650s. In
January 1654 the young artist asked the notary Jan Jansz van Griecken torelieve his guardians of responsibilities that had been given them after hismother’s death in 1651.[6] The fact that Van Griecken’s father, a renowned
goldsmith in Leiden, owned one of the artist’s works indicates that thenotary’s family collected Metsu’s work. The painting in question, “a largepicture by Metsu,” which was listed in the father’s posthumous inventory,
was in all likelihood also from the early years of Metsu’s career, either one ofhis sizable history paintings, such as Christ and the Woman Taken in
Adultery (see (fig 1)), or a large genre scene, such as Woman Selling Game
from a Stall (GM-114).[7] However, Public Notary could not have been aportrait of Jan Jansz van Griecken, as the notary was too young to be theindividual represented in this painting.[8]- Adriaan Waiboer, 2017

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Public NotaryPage 5 of 8Endnotes

1. See Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven,2012), 161, for a list of Metsu’s extant dated works.
2. Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven,2012), 168, under A-8. The auction catalogue of the Van Hoeken sale (see Provenance) lists
the date as 1665. In the copy of this catalogue, preserved at the Getty Research Institute, Los
Angeles, this year has been crossed out and substituted by 1651. Neither of these dates,
however, is likely when the style of the painting in relation to Metsu’s chronology is taken intoaccount.
3. For Metsu’s A Notary Sharpening his Pen, c. 1653, oil on panel, 40 x 32.5 cm., in the Kilacollection, Switzerland, see Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue
Raisonné (New Haven, 2012), 21, 168, no. A-9, ill. The same model is depicted in this work.
4. Peter C. Sutton, “Love Letters: Dutch Genre Painting in the Age of Vermeer,” in Love Letters:
Dutch Genre Paintings in the Age of Vermeer, ed. Peter C. Sutton (Exh. cat. Dublin, National
Gallery of Ireland; Greenwich, Conn., Bruce Museum of Arts and Sciences) (New Haven,2003), 23–24.
5. See, for instance, Love Letters: Dutch Genre Paintings in the Age of Vermeer, ed. Peter C.
Sutton (Exh. cat. Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland; Greenwich, Conn., Bruce Museum ofArts and Sciences) (New Haven, 2003), 154–61, nos. 28–30, all ill.
6. Regional Archives Leiden, notarial archives A 892, record no. 27 (first published by Abraham
Bredius, “Iets over de jeugd van Gabriel Metsu,” Oud-Holland 25 [1907]: 201). See also
Adriaan E. Waiboer, “The Early Years of Gabriel Metsu,” Burlington Magazine 147 (2005): 90.
7. Regional Archives Leiden, notarial archives 762, no. 351. For more on the Van Grieckens andtheir relationship with Metsu, see Pieter Roelofs, “Early Owners of Paintings by Metsu inLeiden and Amsterdam,” in Gabriel Metsu, ed. Adriaan E. Waiboer (Exh. cat. Dublin, National
Gallery of Ireland; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) (NewHaven, 2010), 99.
8. Van Griecken was born after 1613; see Pieter Roelofs, “Early Owners of Paintings by Metsu
in Leiden and Amsterdam,” 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), 99.

Provenance© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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[Daniel Katz, The Hague, by 1940].
M. L. van Hoeken, Wassenaar (his sale, Paul Brandt, Amsterdam, 25 June 1959, no. 194 [for14,000 florins]).
[R. Lamm, Paris, by 1960].
Adelaide Stein Miller, New York (her sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 11 April 1991, no. 59, as by
Quiringh Gerritsz van Brekelenkam [to Richard P. Boncza]).
Richard P. Boncza, Fair Lawn, New Jersey (sale, Tajan, Paris, 14 December 1998, no. 223,bought in; sale, Tajan, Paris, 9 December 1999, no. 40, bought in [Otto Naumann, 2004]).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2004.

Exhibition History
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].

References
Gudlaugsson, Sturla J. “Kanttekeningen bij de ontwikkeling van Metsu.” Oud Holland 83(1968): 13 n. 2, 19, no. 7, 24 n. 18.
Robinson, Franklin W. Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667): A Study of His Place in Dutch Genre
Painting of the Golden Age. New York, 1974, 31, 120, no. 37.
Bénézit, Emmanuel. Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs,dessinateurs et graveurs de tous les temps et de tous les pays par un groupe d’écrivains
spécialistes français et étrangers. 14 vols. Paris, 1976. Revised edition by Jacques Busse. 14vols. Paris, 1999, 9:537.
Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. “Review of Robinson 1974.” Art Bulletin 58 (1976): 457.
Wurfbain, Maarten L. “Vrouwenfiguren in schilderijen uit Gabriël Metsu’s Leidsejaren.” Tableau 2, no. 1 (Oct./Nov. 1979): 17, fig. 10.
Naumann, Otto. Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder. 2 vols. Doornspijk, 1981, 1: 42 n.
40; 58 n. 46.
MacLaren, Neil and Christopher Brown. National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School,1600–1900. 2 vols. London, 1991, 1:257.
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Waiboer, Adriaan E. “The Early Years of Gabriel Metsu.” Burlington Magazine 147 (2005): 89
n. 56, 90, no. 16.
Waiboer, Adriaan E. “Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667): Life and Work.” 4 vols. PhD diss. New
York University, 2007, 1:104–5, 405–6, no. A-16; 4:1065.
Waiboer, Adriaan E. Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné. New Haven,
2012, 20, 168, no. A-8.

Technical Summary
The support, a single plank of vertically grained and vertically oriented rectangular oak, hasbevels along all four edges.[1] The panel is unthinned and uncradled, and has machine toolmarks
and one paper label but no wax collection seals, import stamps, stencils or panel maker’s marks.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied. A gently curved arch incised into theground along the upper right quadrant may indicate that the upper arch of the window wasoriginally intended to be farther to the right. Additional diagonally oriented incised lines along thestonework are oriented parallel to the lower book edge. The ground appears to be followed by abrown to brown-black sketch.[2]The paint has been applied in successive thin layers with transparent glazing, light over dark. In
raking light the outer contours and highlights of the figure’s proper right sleeve, the contour of thebrown triangular corner of fabric along his chest, and the edge of the book are slightly raised withlow visible brushmarking. Fine traction cracks in thin dark areas, such as the shadows below thebook and hand, may be due to the sketch.[3]No underdrawing or compositional changes are readily apparent in infrared images captured at
780–1000 nanometers or in the X-radiograph.
The painting is unsigned but inscribed and dated in light-colored paint on a sign depicted in thelower left corner. The final digit of the date is ambiguous.
The painting was cleaned and restored in 2004 and remains in a good state of preservation
despite areas of thinness along the stonework.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on visual examination only.
2. According to 2009 examination notes by E. Melanie Gifford from the National Gallery of Art,
Washington.
3. According to 2009 examination notes by E. Melanie Gifford from the National Gallery of Art,© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Public NotaryPage 8 of 8Washington.

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