A Self-Portrait c.1655-8
Oil on panel | 37.7 x 31.4 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 405943
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The device of a single figure presented through an illusionistic stone window frame is one which Metsu has learned from his teacher, Gerrit Dou (compare, for example, CW 43, 404621; CW 44, 404803 and CW 45, 404618). In this case, however, the artist presents himself. He does so very explicitly as an intellectual painter in the mainstream Italianate tradition, rather than as a Dutch craftsman. He is richly dressed to suggest that painting is a 'Liberal Art', appropriate for gentlemen rather than labourers. He holds a piece of chalk rather than a brush: drawing was regarded as the 'thinking' part of art, painting the manual, reiterating the same socio-intellectual point. He displays examples of art which have inspired him: a sculpted head of a Muse or some such Classical figure and a print after Gerard Seghers's 'Christ at the Column'. These are both works of art with elevated subjects, not merely representations of everyday reality; they are Flemish and somewhat in the style of Sir Peter Paul Rubens - the most ambitious and Italianate artist from the Low Countries during the seventeenth century. They have little to do with the work Metsu himself actually painted, but they suggest that his aspirations were as high as any.
In his left hand (perhaps significantly) Metsu holds the tools of the lower part of his trade: brushes, mahlstick (a thing which helps you hold your hand still when painting) and pliers to remove tacks when re-stretching canvases. He is also surrounded by a jug and pot for oils, a further brush, a box to contain colours and a shell for mixing them.
Signed lower right: 'G. Metsu.'Provenance
Purchased by George IV from Sir Thomas Baring as part of a group of 86 Dutch and Flemish paintings, most of which were collected by Sir Thomas’s father, Sir Francis Baring; they arrived at Carlton House on 6 May 1814; recorded in the anti-room to the Dining Room at Carlton House in 1816 (no 96); in the Picture Gallery at Buckingham Palace in 1841 (no 16)
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Creator(s)
(nationality)Acquirer(s)
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Medium and techniques
Oil on panel
Measurements
37.7 x 31.4 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
53.4 x 46.9 x 4.0 cm (frame, external)
Other number(s)
Alternative title(s)
Self-Portrait standing at a Window
Portrait of the artist