Smoker with a pipe and a pitcher in his hands

Smoker with a Pipe and a Pitcher in His Hands (1662) belongs to Metsu's Amsterdam period and depicts a male figure in the tavern or domestic smoking tradition that was standard in Dutch genre painting. The combination of pipe and pitcher suggests the pleasures of tobacco and drink — a pairing that carried associations with leisure and male sociability, if not also with the Vanitas subtext about the transience of pleasure and the illusoriness of material satisfaction. The National Museum in Warsaw holds this work as part of its substantial Dutch Golden Age collection. Metsu's handling of the smoker type by 1662 was entirely assured — the genre had been established by Jan Steen, Adriaen van Ostade, and others, and Metsu's contribution is the same refinement he brought to all subjects, elevating the tavern smoker toward the quality of a cabinet picture.

Oil paint with Metsu's Amsterdam smoothness applied to a subject more commonly associated with rougher, broader handling in the tavern genre tradition. The pitcher catches light as a still-life element within the figure composition, and the smoke is suggested through atmospheric haziness rather than explicit detail.