© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Woman Selling Game from a Stall
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Woman Selling Game from a Stall
Gabriel Metsu(Leiden 1629 – 1667 Amsterdam)ca. 1653–54
oil on canvas
161.3 x 130 cm
signed in dark paint on side of wooden
barrel, lower right: “Gmet?u” (“Gm” inligature)
GM-114

How to cite
Waiboer, Adriaan. “Woman Selling Game from a Stall” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed.
Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/a-woman-sellinggame-from-a-stall/ (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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The interactions of food sellers and their clients was a theme that greatlyComparative Figuresappealed to Gabriel Metsu. He painted no fewer than fifteen market scenes
over the course of his short career, making it the most popular theme in hisoeuvre. Despite the prevalence of this subject matter in the works of Gerrit
Dou (1613–75) and Frans van Mieris (1635–81), Metsu painted only one
market scene during his Leiden period, Woman Selling Game from aStall.[1] Although he executed this work in the vicinity of Dou’s and Van
Mieris’s studios, this painting differs strongly from those two artists’ works,
as well as from Metsu’s own later market scenes, in terms of its large scale,broad painting technique, figure types and the emphasis on foreground stilllife elements.
Woman Selling Game from a Stall represents a robust female vendor ofgame and poultry who holds up a large hare by one of its paws for theapproval of a young female customer. The coin the young woman holds inher hand indicates that the vendor has been successful in her marketingFig 1. Gabriel Metsu, The
Dismissal of Hagar, 1653–54, oilon canvas, 112 x 86 cm, Stedelijk
Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden, S
2209, purchased with support ofVereniging Rembrandt

efforts. The foreground is filled with various dead birds, including a goose, arooster and a duck. A pigeon, having escaped from its tipped-over wicker
cage, is distracted by a black-and-white dog sniffing a dead rooster in the left
foreground. A few other vending stalls are visible in the left background.
This ambitious youthful work measures 159.1 x 124.9 cm, making it one of
the largest pictures of Metsu’s entire oeuvre.[2] Its enormous size suggeststhat he painted it on commission rather than for the free market. It seems
exceptional that someone would have ordered this work from the young
artist, who had no previous experience in painting large still lifes. In fact,Woman Selling Game from a Stall is the first of Metsu’s paintings to feature
any animal other than a dog.[3]The piece is foremost a response to the work of the Utrecht artist Jan Baptist
Weenix (1621–60/61). Metsu came into contact with Weenix throughNicolaus Knüpfer (ca. 1603–55), with whom he probably apprenticed in theFig 2. Jan Baptist Weenix, Game
Still Life with Hunter, 1652, oil oncanvas, 138 x 195 cm, Bayersiche
Staatsgemäldesammlungen, AltePinakothek, Munich, bpk, Berlin /Alte Pinakothek / Art Resource,NYearly 1650s.[4] Weenix, who is known to have collaborated with Knüpfer, wasa specialist in both Italianate landscapes and animal still lifes.[5] The clearest
confirmation of Metsu’s admiration for Weenix’s paintings is his early The
Dismissal of Hagar, ca. 1653–54 (fig 1). The stocky, muscular figures andMediterranean setting in that painting call to mind the shepherdesses in
Weenix’s Italianate landscapes.[6] Moreover, the fluid painting technique, themanner of underpainting the composition, and the choice of pigments arealso similar to that Utrecht master’s style.[7]© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Stylistically, Woman Selling Game from a Stall relates to Weenix’s The
Dismissal of Hagar. Metsu executed both paintings with elongated brushwork
and they share an overall greenish-brown palette with a few concentrated
accents of white and red. Furthermore, in both works the figures stand before
an open door of a diagonally receding building covered by an arched wooden
awning. Each painting also includes a tilted tree in front of the house and aview into the distance.
Although Weenix never seems to have painted a market scene with gameand poultry that could have served as Metsu’s source of inspiration, he did
paint a number of large still lifes. Some of these feature dead hares hanging
upside down, as well as ducks, geese and swans lying on their backs with
their heads drooping down (fig 2).[8] It is also likely that Metsu knew of themarket scenes painted by such Flemish artists as Pieter Aertsen(1507/8–75), Joachim Beuckelaer (ca. 1534–ca. 1574), and Frans Snyders(1579–1657), which show similar vending stalls with rich displays of various
kinds of game and poultry.[9]Composing this market scene proved challenging to the young artist. Theinteraction between the figures is awkward, as the vendor has turned toward
the viewer while addressing the customer behind her. The positioning of theanimals, the tables and the cage looks disjointed, even chaotic. Metsu may
have exaggerated perspective effects to accommodate a client’s wish tohang the painting in an elevated position, but his efforts were not entirely
successful.
Although the muscular physiognomy of Metsu’s vendor is reminiscent ofwomen Weenix depicted in his paintings of the Italian campagna, her facial
features and those of her customer resemble those in paintings by Maerten
Stoop (ca. 1620–47).[10] Stoop was a Utrecht painter whose oeuvre shows astrong affinity with the work of Knüpfer and Weenix. Although Stoop had diedby the time Metsu arrived in Utrecht, his impact is evident in some of theyounger artist’s early Leiden paintings.[11]The women’s attire here is not typical of contemporary Dutch fashion. A
revealing top that amplifies a woman’s chest to such an extent would hardly
have been worn by female vendors in the markets of Leiden or Utrecht.
Since the mid-sixteenth century, with paintings by Aertsen and Beuckelaer,
artists had generally depicted market women as seductresses, with the foods
they sell underscoring their sexuality.[12] The slashed sleeves of thewoman’s red top may have had a similar function. They are not inaccordance with contemporary fashion, but they do appear in fantasy© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Woman Selling Game from a Stall
Page 5 of 10costumes worn by Metsu’s depictions of prostitutes and jesters.[13]The female customer’s hooded cloak is typical of fashions from the southern
Netherlands, which may suggest that Metsu painted this work for a Flemish
immigrant in Leiden.[14] As both of the artist’s parents had originally comefrom the southern Netherlands, the local community of refugees was among
the artist’s clientele.[15] Metsu’s most important commission prior to A Woman
Selling Game from a Stall was The Triumph of Justice, which came fromMichiel van Peenen, a merchant whose father was from Belle, the presentday Bailleul, near Lille, the same village in which Metsu’s father
was born.[16] Their shared origins must have been the determining factor forVan Peenen to approach Metsu, for the artist was not experienced inpainting such complicated allegories.[17] Likewise, Woman Selling Game froma Stall may have been commissioned from a client with shared Flemishroots.
Although the early provenance of Woman Selling Game from a Stall is
unknown, the painting probably stayed in Leiden for an extended period oftime. The eighteenth-century Leiden painter Louis de Moni (1698–1771), whowas a great admirer of Metsu’s work, painted a copy after it.[18] Although thework is a faithful repetition, it is far smaller in size (58.5 x 49 cm) thanMetsu’s impressive youthful painting.

- Adriaan Waiboer, 2017

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Woman Selling Game from a Stall
Page 6 of 10Endnotes

1. Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven,2012), 50–55, 100–4. For more on Metsu’s Vegetable Market in Amsterdam, see ibid., 100–2,236–37, no. A-94, ill.
2. The largest painting is Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery in the Musée du Louvre,
Paris, which measures 134 x 165 cm.
3. Dead and live birds would appear regularly in Metsu’s genre scenes from later in his career,
but usually not more than one or two at a time. The artist’s predilection for representing birds
culminated in 1655–58, when he painted a dead white cockerel hanging on a string, a rare
independent still life that allowed him to show off his proficiency in painting feathers. SeeAdriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven,2012), 64–66.
4. On Metsu’s relationship with Knüpfer, see Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work:A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven, 2012), 12–19.
5. On the collaboration between Knüpfer and Weenix, see Carl Willnau, “Die Zusammenarbeit
des Nikolaus Knüpfer mit anderen Künstlern,” Oud Holland 67 (1952): 210–17; and Jo
Saxton, Nicolaus Knüpfer (1603/09–1655): An Original Artist (Doornspijk, 2005), 41, 43.
6. On Metsu’s relationship with Weenix, see Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work:A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven, 2012), 23–24.
7. Melanie E. Gifford, “Fine Painting and Eloquent Imprecision: Gabriel Metsu’s PaintingTechnique,” in Gabriel Metsu, ed. Adriaan E. Waiboer (Exh. cat. Dublin, National Gallery ofIreland; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) (New Haven,2010), 159–61.
8. Weenix did paint Market Sellers before Architectural Capricci, undated, oil on canvas, 56 x
44.5 cm, last recorded Bernheimer Old Masters, Munich, 1999, photograph at theRijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague, but this painting focuses on theItalianate setting instead of on a rich display of poultry and game.
9. Sturla J. Gudlaugsson, “Kanttekeningen bij de ontwikkeling van Metsu,” Oud Holland 83(1968): 16, already suggested that Metsu may have drawn inspiration from Flemish market
scenes.
10. See, for example, Maerten Stoop’s Lady at Her Dressing Table, mid-1640s, oil on panel, 61.5
x 51.5 cm, present location unknown, last recorded Kunsthandel Cramer, The Hague, 1977,
photograph at the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague.
11. Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven,© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Woman Selling Game from a Stall
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12. Keith Moxey, “Pieter Aertsen, Joachim Beuckelaer, and the Rise of Secular Painting in theContext of the Reformation” (PhD diss. University of Chicago, 1977), 26–53, 98–102. See
also GM-100.
13. See, for instance, Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné(New Haven, 2012), 165–66, nos. A-2, A-3; 236–38, no. A-94, all ill.
14. Sturla J. Gudlaugsson, “Kanttekeningen bij de ontwikkeling van Metsu,” Oud Holland 83(1968): 16 n. 11.
15. On the Flemish origins of Metsu’s parents, see Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life andWork: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven, 2012), 3–4.
16. Linda Stone-Ferrier, “Metsu’s Justice Protecting Widows and Orphans: Patron and PainterRelationships and Their Involvement in the Social and Economic Plight of Widows andOrphans in Leiden,” in The Public and Private in Dutch Culture of the Golden Age, ed. ArthurK. Wheelock Jr. and Adele Seeff (Newark, Del., 2000), passim; Pieter Roelofs, “Early Ownersof 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), 101–2.
17. Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven,2012), 17.
18. Louis de Moni’s copy appeared for sale at Sotheby’s, London, 3–4 December 1997, no. 189,ill., as after G. Metsu. Moni painted several copies after works by Metsu and even seems tohave owned works by him (Adriaan E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue
Raisonné [New Haven, 2012], 181, copy 2 after no. A-29; 210, copy 5 after no. A-66 [possiblyby De Moni]; 277, copy 4 after no. B-7; 284, copy 2 after no. B-16; 290, no. C-14; 290–91, no.
C-26; 295, no. C-78).

Provenance[Art dealer Lesser, London, 1887].
Sir Thomas-Fermor Hesketh, 8th Baronet, later 1st Baron Hesketh (1881–1944), Easton
Neston, Northamptonshire; thence by direct family descent (sale, Sotheby’s, London, 8 July
2009, no. 9; [Johnny van Haeften, London]).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2009.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Exhibition History
Bath, Holburne Museum of Art, “A Matter of Life and Death,” 23 January–25 March 2007 [nonumber, lent by Lord and Lady Hesketh].
Bath, Holburne Museum of Art, on loan with the permanent collection, April 2007–March 2008
[lent by Lord and Lady Hesketh].
Northampton, Northampton Museum and Art Gallery, January–May 2009, on loan with thepermanent collection [lent by Lord and Lady Hesketh].
Ithaca, Cornell University, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, “An Eye for Detail: Dutch
Painting from the Leiden Collection,” 20 September 2014–21 June 2015 [lent by the presentowner].
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].
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 May2019 [lent by the present owner].

ReferencesVon Bode, Wilhelm. Rembrandt und seine Zeitgenossen: Charakterbilder der Grossen
Meister der holländischen und flämischen Malerschule im iebzehnten Jahrhundert. Leipzig,1906, 62.
Bredius, Abraham. “Lets over de jeugd van Gabriel Metsu.” Oud Holland 25 (1907): 197.
Krönig, Johann O. “Gabriel Metsu.” Revue de l’art ancien et moderne 25 (1909): 99, 102.
Krönig, Johann O. “Wie was de leermeester van Gabriel Metsu?” In Feest-bundel Dr.
Abraham Bredius aangeboden den achttienden april 1915. Edited by Cornelis Hofstede deGroot et. al., 137, fig. 49. Amsterdam, 1915.
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Woman Selling Game from a Stall
Page 9 of 10Von Bode, Wilhelm. Die Meister der holländischen und flämischen Malerschulen. Leipzig,
1917, 90.
Tipping, H, Avery. “Easton Neston, Northamptonshire: The Seat of Sir Thomas FermorHesketh, Bt.” Country Life 62 (27 August 1927): 302, fig. 11.
Plietzsch, Eduard. “Gabriel Metsu.” Pantheon 17 (1936): 8–9.
Von Bode, Wilhelm. Die Meister der holländischen und flämischen Malerschulen: Neubearbeitet und ergänzt von Eduard Plietszch. Edited by Eduard Plietzsch, 116. Leipzig, 1958.
Gudlaugsson, Sturla J. “Kanttekeningen bij de ontwikkeling van Metsu.” Oud-Holland 83(1968): 16–17.
Robinson, Franklin W. Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667): A Study of His Place in Dutch Genre
Painting of the Golden Age. New York, 1974, 19, fig. 7.
Honig, Elizabeth. “De Haringkoopvrouw.” In Leidse Fijnschilders: Van Gerrit Dou tot Frans
van Mieris de Jonge, 1630–1760. Edited by Eric Jan Sluijter, Marlies Enklaar, and Paul
Nieuwenhuizenm, 265, n. 3. Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal. Zwolle, 1988.
Kleinmann, Ute. “Rahmen und Gerahmtes: Das Spiel mit Darstellungen und Deutung, EineUntersuchung des illusionistischen Rahmenmotivs im Oeuvre Gerrit Dous.” PhD diss.
University of Bochum, 1992 / Frankfurt am Main, 1996, 145.
Waiboer, Adriaan E. “Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667), Life and Work.” 4 vols. PhD diss. New York
University, 2007, 1: 93–94, 391–92, no. A-10, 4: 1059.
Waiboer, Adriaan E. Gabriel Metsu, Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné. New Haven,
2012, 23, 169, no. A-11.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Woman Selling Game From a Stall.” In Rembrandt and His Time:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 112; 183, no. 46.
Translated by Li Ying. 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, 160–61.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Woman Selling Game from a Stall.” In The Age of Rembrandt andVermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 118–19; 236,
no. 26. 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.
Ducos, Blaise, and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, eds. Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden
Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Exh. cat. Abu
Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019, 161, no. 80. [Exhibition catalogue also published inFrench and Arabic.]© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Woman Selling Game from a StallPage 10 of 10Versions
Versions and Copies

1. Louis de Moni (1698–1771), A Woman Selling Game from a Stall, oil on panel, 58.5 x 49 cm,whereabouts unknown (sale, Sotheby’s, London, 3–4 December, 1997, no. 189).

Technical Summary
The support is composed of two pieces of medium-weight, plain-weave fabric joined with avertical seam, which transverses the basket and tree. The upper corners and all four tacking
margins have been removed. Fabric inserts along the upper corners complete the rectangularformat in which the painting has been lined.[1] Pronounced cusping along the upper and lower
edges and slight cusping along the left and right edges suggest the original dimensions have notbeen significantly altered. There are paper labels and white chalk but no wax collection seals,
stencils or import stamps along the lining or stretcher.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied. The paint has been applied with broadtransparent brushstrokes through the sky and brown foreground, which allows the light-colored
underlayer to show through, and smoothly in opaque layers of rich paste blended wet-into-wetthrough the figures. The feathers of the goose have been painted with dry brushwork and low
impasto, and the gold strands of the wheat stalks lying in the foreground have been applied wetover-dry.
No underdrawing or compositional changes are readily apparent in infrared images captured at
780–1000 nanometers.
The painting is signed in dark paint on the side of the wooden barrel along the lower right, but isundated.
The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition in 2009 aside fromminor consolidation along the vertical seam in 2012. The painting remains in a good state ofpreservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The straight radiuses of the triangular-shaped inserts are 9–11 cm in length. The third edge ofeach insert is rounded like a circle wedge.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection