A Woman Selling Game from a Stall

A Woman Selling Game from a Stall (1654) is among Metsu's earliest documented works, predating his Amsterdam period, and shows him engaging with the outdoor market-stall tradition of Dutch genre painting. The game stall — hung with rabbits, birds, and other hunting produce — was a type Metsu would have known from Flemish and earlier Dutch kitchen-and-market scenes. By placing a woman vendor at the center of such a stall, he aligns himself with the tradition of market women that stretches from Aertsen through the Leiden Fijnschilders. The Leiden Collection holds this canvas as documentation of Metsu's early style — bolder and less refined than his Amsterdam work, but already showing his attentiveness to the specific details of commerce, labor, and everyday life.

Canvas with the more direct, tactile paint application of Metsu's early period before Amsterdam refinement. The hanging game — feathered birds, furred animals — presents a still-life challenge within the genre composition that he handles with honest observation of different textures.