_Gabriel_Metsu.jpg&width=1200)
The Intruder
Gabriel Metsu·c. 1660
Historical Context
Gabriel Metsu's The Intruder from around 1660 depicts a young man's unexpected arrival interrupting a domestic scene, combining the genre tradition of Pieter de Hooch and Vermeer with Metsu's own more anecdotal narrative instinct. Metsu worked in Amsterdam after training in Leiden, and his genre paintings occupy the intersection of Amsterdam's prosperous bourgeois culture and the refined intimacy of the Leiden tradition. His interiors are recognizably Dutch — the tiled floors, the window light, the comfortable furnishings — but his figures have a warmer, more overtly narrative character than Vermeer's mysterious presences. The Intruder participates in the tradition of paintings depicting social visits and romantic encounters that served as vehicles for observations about gender, propriety, and the management of domestic space in seventeenth-century Dutch society.
Technical Analysis
The oil on panel demonstrates Metsu's refined technique with luminous rendering of textiles, metalwork, and interior light. The careful spatial construction and precise treatment of materials show the Dutch Golden Age mastery of domestic genre painting.
Provenance
Possibly William van Huls, London; possibly (his estate sale, at his residence by Wilson, London, 6 August 1722 and days following, no. 129, as _Ladies in their Bedroom_); Edwin.[1] Colonel Gregory Holman Bromley Way [1766-1844], Denham Place, Buckinghamshire;[2] sold to (John Smith [1781-1855], London); sold 26 January 1830 to George John Venables-Vernon, 5th baron Vernon [1803-1866], Sudbury Hall, Derby; (his sale, Christie & Manson, London, 15-16 April 1831, 2nd day, no. 50, as _The Importunate Intruder_); purchased by (John Smith [1781-1855], London) for Sir Charles Bagot [1781-1843];[3] (his sale, Christie & Manson, London, 18 June 1836, no. 56); Albertus Brondgeest [1786-1849], The Hague, buying for Baron Johan Gijsbert Verstolk van Soelen [1776-1845], The Hague; sold 1846 with the Verstolk van Soelen collection through (John Chaplin, London) to a consortium of Samuel Jones Loyd [1796-1883, later 1st baron Overstone], Humphrey Mildmay [1794-1853], and Thomas Baring [1799-1873], London, and Stratton Park, Hampshire;[4] by inheritance to Baring's nephew, Thomas George Baring, 1st earl of Northbrook [1826-1904], London and Stratton Park; by inheritance to his son, Francis George Baring, 2nd earl of Northbrook [1850-1929], London and Stratton Park; sold March 1927 to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);[5] sold November 1927 to Andrew W. Mellon, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.; deeded 28 December 1934 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1937 to NGA. [1] Adriaan E. Waiboer, _Gabriel Metsu (1629-1667): Life and Work_, Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 2007: 762, no. A-130; Frank Simpson, "Dutch Paintings in England before 1760," _The Burlington Magazine_ 95, no. 599 (February 1953): 41. [2] John Smith, _A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters_, 9 vols., London, 1829–1842: 4(1833):103, no. 94; 9(1842):524, no. 29, provides the provenance for the painting from Colonel Way through Brondgeest. [3] See Charles Sebag-Montefiore with Julia I. Armstrong-Totten, _A Dynasty of Dealers: John Smith and Successors, 1801-1924_, Arundel and London, London, 2013: 21-22, 72, 75-77. [4] The catalogue of the Verstolk van Soelen collection, annotated with the purchasers of each work, was prepared by Albertus Brondgeest and is dated 29 June 1846. The Metsu painting is number 30 and the purchaser was Baring. See William Henry James Weale and Jean Paul Richter, _A Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures Belonging to the Earl of Northbrook_, London, 1889: 199, 202-203. [5] Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Getty Research Institute, Research Library, Los Angeles: reel 124, box 269, folders 14-17. Duveen's representative first saw the painting in 1913 in the front drawing room of Lord Northbrook's London house.
_-_Jan_Jacobsz_Hinlopen_and_his_Family_-_792_-_Gem%C3%A4ldegalerie.jpg&width=600)
