Page:Hofstede de Groot catalogue raisonné, Volume 1, 1908.djvu/307

ii GABRIEL METSU 283 VANT (or, " The Letter "). Sm. Suppl. 28. A three-quarter length. A lady, wearing a dark grey jacket trimmed with fur and a brown skirt, sits almost in profile, with her right hand upon a pet dog on her lap. She gives a letter to a maid-servant with a market-pail under her arm who stands on the farther side of a table. A book lies on the table-cloth. The picture is damaged, but was once very good. Signed ; panel, i inches by n| inches. Sales. G. C. Blanken, The Hague, June 4, 1800, No. 14 (26 florins, Vogel) ; said to be by Metsu or in his manner. Amsterdam, April 22, 1809, No. 77 (85 florins). In the Kalkbrenner collection, Paris, 1842 (Sm.). Probably in the Montcalm collection. Sales. (Probably) Braine, London, 1857 (162 : 153., Nieuwenhuys). F. Werbrouck and others, Antwerp, September 12, 1859, No. 115. (Probably) Adrian Hope, London, June 30, 1894, No. 41 (336, Lesser). Now in the collection of A. de Ridder, Cronberg, Frank fort-on-the-Main. 1 06. A LADY HOLDING A MINIATURE, WITH A PAGE. Sm. 89. -A lady, wearing a blue bodice trimmed with ermine and a white silk skirt, sits at a table covered with a Turkey carpet, holding a miniature. On the table are a silver box and a mirror. A page standing opposite the lady pours water from a ewer into a silver basin. In the back- ground a maid-servant is making the bed. According to the Hope catalogue it is signed, but its authenticity is very doubtful. If memory serves, it appeared to be by Ochterveld. Signed (?) ; panel, 19^ inches by 16 inches. Exhibited at the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition, 1881, No. 107. Formerly in the Lormier collection (Sm.). In the collection of Henry Philip Hope, 1833 (Sm.). In the collection of Lord Francis Pelham Clinton Hope, London 1891 catalogue, No. 82 sold as a whole in 1898 to A. Wertheimer and P. and D. Colnaghi. Sale. Lawrie and Co., London, January 28, 1905, No. 95. 107. An Interior with a Lady and a Boy. 12 inches by 10^ inches. Sales. London, July 29, 1899, No. 53. Hirst and others, London, March 31, 1900, No. 39. 1 08. A Gentleman with a Lackey. 15 inches by 12 inches. Sale. Herman Schuurman, Rotterdam, April 2, 1739, No. 4 (no florins). 109. THE ALMS (or, The charitable Lady). Sm. 84 and Suppl. 23. A young woman sits in the right foreground upon a stone bench with a wrought-iron back, placed at the door of a house with two steps leading up to it. She wears a white cap, a brownish-red dress, a red satin jacket trimmed with white fur, a broad flat collar, and an apron. She throws a coin into a hat held out by a poor boy in brown, who stands to the left in the street before her. A little spaniel lies at her feet. In the