1629-1667 Dutch Gabriel Metsu Galleries One of his earliest pictures is the "Lazarus" at the Strassburg Museum, painted under the influence of Jan Steen. In 1653 under the influence of Rembrandt he painted "Woman taken in Adultery," a large picture which is 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 he probably observed that sacred art was ill suited to his temper, or he found the field too strongly occupied, and 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." What Metsu undertook and carried out from the first with surprising success was the low life of the market and tavern, contrasted, with wonderful versatility, by incidents of high life and the drawing-room. In no single instance do the artistic lessons of Rembrandt 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 by fit concentration and gradation of light, a warm flush of tone pervading every part, and, with that, the study of texture in stuffs was carried as far as it had been by Ter Borch or Gerard Dou, if not with the finish or the brio of De Hooch. One of the best pictures of Metsu's manhood is the "Market-place of Amsterdam," at the Louvre, respecting which it is difficult to distribute praise in fair proportions, so excellent are the various parts, the characteristic movement and action of the dramatis personae, the selection of faces, the expression and the gesture, and the texture of the things depicted. Equally fine, though earlier, are the "Sportsman" (dated 1661) and the "Tavern" (also 1661) at the Hague and Dresden Museums, and the "Game-Dealer's Shop," also at Dresden, with the painter's signature and 1662. Gabriel Metsu, Man Writing a Letter (1662-1665), Oil on canvas, National Gallery of Ireland, DublinAmong the five examples of the painter in the Wallace Collection, are "The Tabby Cat," and "The Sleeping Sportsman," which cost Lord Hertford £ 3000, is an admirable example technically considered. Among his finest representations of home life are the "Repast" at the Hermitage in St Petersburg; the "Mother nursing her Sick Child" in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam; the "Amateur Musicians" at the Hague Gallery; the "Duet" and the "Music Lesson" at the National Gallery, London, and many more examples at nearly all the leading European galleries. Five of his painting are in Dresden, collected by August the Strong.  Related Paintings of Gabriel Metsu :. | The Music Lesson (nn03) | Woman Tuning a Mandolin | The family of Jan Jacobsz Hinlopen just before the youngest and his wife Leonora Huydecoper van Maarsseveen died | The Apothecary | Old Woman Meditating |
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Edwin Blashfield
(December 5, 1848 - October 12, 1936), an American artist, was born in New York City. He was a pupil of Leon Joseph Florentin Bonnat in Paris beginning in 1867, and became (1888) a member of the National Academy of Design in New York. For some years a genre painter, he later turned to decorative work, where his academic background in painting and extensive travels to study fresco painting in Italy melded in work marked by rare delicacy and beauty of coloring. Considered a leading muralist of the late 19th century, he painted mural decorations or created mosaics in a number of places associated with the American Renaissance period. His style is cited as an influence of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Jean-Paul Laurens, and Paul Baudr. With his wife he wrote Italian Cities (1900) and edited Vasari's Lives of the Painters (1896), and was well known as a lecturer and writer on art. He became president of the Society of Mural Painters, and of the Society of American Artists.
Oost, Jacob van the Younger
Flemish, 1637-1713
Saloman van Ruysdael
1600-1670 Dutch Saloman van Ruysdael Gallery