Old Woman at Her Meal in an Interiorca. 1654–57

Gabriel Metsu(Leiden 1629 – 1667 Amsterdam)oil on canvas
82.6 x 68.7 cm
indistinctly signed in light paint on wall mirror,
center: “___ETSU”
GM-102Currently on view at: The National Museum ofChina, Beijing© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Old Woman at Her Meal in an Interior
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How To Cite
Waiboer, Adriaan. "Old Woman at Her Meal in an Interior." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/.
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© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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Gabriel Metsu’s move from his native Leiden to Amsterdam in theComparative Figures

mid-1650s had a considerable impact on the character of hispaintings.[1] 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 thanthe broad and fluid brushwork of his Leiden period. These changes,
however, evolved gradually and did not occur overnight. Old Woman at
Her Meal in an Interior is a fascinating painting that shares stylistic andthematic qualities of both his Leiden and Amsterdam periods, whichindicates 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

Fig 1. Gerrit Dou, An Old Woman
at Prayer 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

match the scale of his most ambitious works (see, for example, GM-101,fig. 1), but it is the largest of his early Amsterdam-period paintings. Its
broad and fluid brushwork shares qualities with works by Jan Baptist
Weenix (1621–60/61), an artist Metsu seems to have known when he wasin 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 old woman’s hands, the earthenware plate, the halfcut bread, and the glass on the floor, all indicating an evolution in his
manner of painting.

Fig 2. Gabriel Metsu, TwelfthNight, 1653–55, oil on canvas,80.9 x 97.9 cm, Bayerische
Staatsgemäldesammlungen, AltePinakothek, Munich, inv.
871, bpk, Berlin / Alte Pinakothek/ Art Resource, NYInterestingly, Old Woman at Her Meal in an Interior relates to the types ofinterior 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 wasin Leiden. Only after he 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 to meet explicit demands
from local collectors for paintings with a “Leiden” character.[3] The present
painting, for example, is thematically and compositionally related to Dou’s
An Old Woman at Prayer before Her Meal from the early 1640s (fig 1). In
these two paintings an elderly female, accompanied by her pet, is shown
seated at a tripod table laden with food. Both scenes are set in a modest
interior filled with an 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 size of Metsu’s canvas, and Dou© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Old Woman at Her Meal in an Interior
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executed his picture in a meticulous technique that is fundamentallydifferent from Metsu’s fluid brushwork.
Metsu’s and Dou’s paintings differ in the artists’ use of light and color.
Even though Dou’s work has a relatively strong light and dark contrast,
Metsu deepened this effect to a near-chiaroscuro with a spotlighted circle
on the wooden floor. Moreover, he reduced the number and the intensity ofbright color areas. The result is a more tranquil image with a stronger
focus on the center of the composition. The same combination of more
evocative lighting and monochrome coloring can be seen in some earlyworks 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. Thesesimilarities in style suggest that Metsu traveled to Dordrecht to study someof Maes’s paintings, although the chronology of their works from themid-1650s is uncertain.[4] It may be that both artists independently
transformed Dou’s work in a slightly Rembrandtesque manner. Though nota 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 this figure type—with dark, penetrating eyes, prominent
cheekbones, and pouting lips—in modest interiors.[6] Metsu first depicted
this particular model in his Twelfth Night of 1653–55 (fig 2), and shereappears 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 smallerand slightly more refined in execution than Old Woman at Her Meal in anInterior, suggesting that Metsu completed them slightly later. Remarkably,
he continued representing this same old woman into the mid-1660s.[8]Metsu’s image of an old woman eating by herself indicates that she was awidow. Elderly women who had outlived their husbands were popularsubjects in both the visual arts and contemporary literature. In the lastchapter of his Houwelyck (1625), entitled “Weduwe” (Widow), Jacob Cats
(1577–1660) discussed widows as exemplars of life’s transience andencouraged them to concentrate on spiritual matters rather than earthly
ones.[9] Cats also associated widows with sobriety and modesty, and© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Old Woman at Her Meal in an Interior
Page 5 of 9advised them to refrain from extravagance, even with regard to food. Apassage from Consolation Letter of Widows (1630) by Pieter Iansz
Twisck (1565–1636), originally a letter 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 of other people, in front of authorities and her familiar
friends.[10]Contemporary viewers would have associated the widow’s meal of meat,cheese and bread with sobriety and moderation, a notion reinforced by themodest interior and the way she tilts her head slightly forward to suggest ahumble demeanor.
Metsu gave the scene a religious undertone by including a glass of red
wine on the floor 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 anabundance of Catholic paraphernalia, including a ciborium, a large
covered cup designed to hold the Host for the celebration of theEucharist.[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 The Leiden Collection

Old Woman at Her Meal in an Interior
Page 6 of 9Endnotes
1. On the date of Metsu’s move from Leiden to Amsterdam, see Adriaan E. Waiboer, “TheEarly Years of Gabriel Metsu,” Burlington Magazine 147 (2005): 90, and Adriaan E.
Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven and London,2012), 7–8.
2. On Metsu’s relationship with Weenix, see Adriaan E. Waiboer, “The Early Years of GabrielMetsu,” Burlington Magazine 147 (2005): 89–90; Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Lifeand Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven and London, 2012), 23–24; Melanie E.
Gifford, “Fine Painting and Eloquent Imprecision: Gabriel Metsu’s Painting Technique,” inGabriel Metsu, ed. Adriaan E. Waiboer (Exh. cat. Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland;
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) (New Haven, 2010),
159–61.
3. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Review of Franklin W. Robinson, Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667): A
Study of His Place in Dutch Genre Painting of the Golden Age ,” 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 Gallery of 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 and London,2012), 33–44.
4. Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven andLondon, 2012), 370 n. 6.
5. On Rembrandt’s influence on Metsu’s early work and in particular on his Christ and theWoman Taken in Adultery, dated 1653, see Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life andWork: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven and London, 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 thesame 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 theconcept of Rembrandt’s mother, see Rembrandt’s Mother: Myth and Reality , ed. Christiaan
Vogelaar (Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) (Zwolle, 2005).
7. Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven andLondon, 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 and© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Old Woman at Her Meal in an Interior
Page 7 of 9London, 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 ofVirtue: Women and Domesticity in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art (Cambridge and NewYork, 1993), 176, 243 n. 43 (original Dutch text). See chapter 4, “Weduwe,” of Franits’sbook (161–94) for an excellent description of Dutch paintings of widows and old women athome.
11. Although documentation is lacking, a handful of biographical facts suggest that the artist wasCatholic. 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 and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven and London,2012), 10.
12. For more on Metsu’s Saint Dorothy, see Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work:A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven and London, 2012), 119, 254, no. A-114, ill.

ProvenanceAlexis-Joseph Febvre (1811–82), Paris (his sale, Hôtel Drouot, George, Le Roy, C. P.:
Lechat, Chevallier, Paris, 17–20 April 1882, no. 74 [for 3,500 francs to possibly Elhnazaer]).
Collection M. Elhnazaer (sale, Musée Galliera, C. P.: Ader, Couturier, Paris, 9 December
1961, no. 31).
French private collection, by 1971 (sale, C. P.: Guignard, Hôtel des Ventes Gabriel, Lorient,
2 July 2000, not sold; sale, C. P.: Mercier et Cie, Lille, 23 June 2002, no. 225 [SalomonLilian, B. V., Amsterdam, and Kunsthandel 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].
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Old Woman at Her Meal in an Interior
Page 8 of 9Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The
Leiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].

References
Eudel, Paul. L’Hôtel Drouot et la curiosité en 1882 avec une préface par M. ArmandSilvestre. 2 vols. Paris, 1883, 2:248.
Robinson, Franklin W. Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667): A Study of His Place in Dutch Genre
Painting of the Golden 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. Salescat. Amsterdam, Salomon Lilian, B. V. Zwolle, 2003, 42–47, no. 15.
Waiboer, Adriaan E. “Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667): Life and Work.” 4 vols. Ph.D. 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 D.C., National Gallery of Art. New Haven, 2010,9–10, fig. 8; 195, no. 36.
Duparc, Frederik J., with Femke Diercks, Reinier Baarsen, and Loek van Aalst. Golden:Dutch and Flemish Masterworks from the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo
Collection. New Haven and London, 2011, 202, 204, fig. 1.
Waiboer, Adriaan E. Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné. New Havenand London, 2012, 34, 175, no. A-20.

Technical Summary
The support, a single piece of medium-weight, plain-weave fabric, has been lined. All fourtacking margins have been removed, although remnants of the left and right tacking margins
remain. Cusping along all four sides—deep on the lower edge, shallow on the left, right, andupper edges—indicates that the composition’s dimensions have not been significantly altered.[1]A vertical canvas tear along the lower left quadrant, to the left of the figure, was repaired prior tolining.[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
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Old Woman at Her Meal in an Interior
Page 9 of 9and right tacking margin remnants. A blackish sketched outline, which remains visible below theleft edge of the skirt, appears to outline the foreground elements but not those along thebackground.[3] The paint appears to have been applied with a thin wash underpaint followed by amore 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 thatarea was completed, as it overlaps the skirt and floor.[4] Very little of the composition is visible in
the X-radiograph aside from the white tablecloth draped over the table and the figure’s whitecollar.[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 thecenter of the background. A fine network of drying cracks allows a light brown underlayer toshow through, which is darker and more pronounced than the whitish-gray paint of the signatureand therefore makes the signature difficult 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.

Technical Summary Endnotes

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

© 2017 The Leiden Collection