METSU, GABRIEL (163o-1667), Dutch painter, was the son of Jacob Metsu, a painter of Leyden, by his third wife Ja comina Garnyers. According to Houbraken, Metsu was taught by Gerard Dow. He was registered among the first members of the painters' corporation at Leyden; and he was still a member in 1649. In 1650 or soon after he settled at Amsterdam. One of his earliest pictures is the "Lazarus" at the Strasbourg museum, painted under the influence of Jan Steen. Under the influence of Rembrandt he produced the "Woman taken in Adultery" (1635), now in the Louvre. To the same period belong the "Departure of Hagar." formerly in the Thore collection, and the "Widow's Mite" at the Schwerin gallery. But sacred art was ill suited to his temper, and he turned to other subjects for which he was better fitted. That at one time he was deeply impressed by the vivacity and bold technique of Frans Hals can be gathered from Lord Lonsdale's picture of "Women at a Fishmonger's Shop." Metsu depicted with surprising success the low life of the market and tavern, con trasted, with wonderful versatility, by incidents of high life and the drawing-room. In no instance do the artistic lessons of Rem brandt appear to have been lost upon him. The same principles
of light and shade which had marked his schoolwork in the "Woman taken in Adultery" were applied to subjects of quite a different kind. A group in a drawing-room, a series of groups in the market-place, or a single figure in the gloom of a tavern or parlour, was treated with the utmost felicity.
Metsu married in 1658, and became a citizen of Amsterdam in 1659. One of the best pictures of his manhood is the admirable, "Market-place of Amsterdam," at the Louvre. Equally fine are the "Sportsman" (1661) and the "Music Lovers" at The Hague, and the "Game-Dealer's Shop" at Dresden, with the painter's signature and 1662. Among the five examples of the painter at the Wallace collection, including "The Tabby Cat," "The Sleeping Sportsman" is an admirable example. Among his finest representa tions of home life are the "Repast" at the Hermitage in St. Peters burg (Leningrad) ; the "Mother nursing her Sick Child" of the Steengracht gallery at The Hague. Metsu died at Amsterdam in 1667, and was buried on Oct. 24 of that year.
See Hofstede de Groot, Catalogue of Dutch Painters (19°7).