Page:Hofstede de Groot catalogue raisonné, Volume 1, 1908.djvu/335

ii GABRIEL METSU 3 n garden. Of this and 24, which he calls "The Letter indited," and regards as its pendant, Sm. says : " These pictures are painted with a broad and melting tenderness of colour, and are in every respect fine examples of the master." Signed in full on the balustrade in the left foreground ; panel, 10 inches by 10 inches. Exhibited in the Palais Ducal, 1855, and at the Dlisseldorf Exhibition, 1904, No. 340. Sales. The Dowager Boreel, Amsterdam, September 23, 1814, No. 8 (950 florins, Van Yperen). At Stanley's, London, 1815 (210, bought in). Le Rouge, Paris, April 27, 1818 (5080 francs). Now in the collection of the Due d'Arenberg, Brussels ; W. Burger's 1859 catalogue, No. 36. 184. A LADY READING A LETTER AND A MAID- SERVANT (or, The Letter received). Sm. 21. The lady sits on a dais in the left-hand corner of a room facing the spectator. She is reading a letter and leans towards the light, which comes from an unseen window with blue curtains on the left. She wears a yellow jacket trimmed with fur, a carnation-coloured skirt, and a white cap. On her lap is a sewing-pillow ; a basket of needlework stands at her side ; in front of her on the floor is a slipper. On the right stands a maid-servant in a brown dress and greyish - brown jacket, with her back to the spectator ; she holds a letter in her left hand, and with the right raises a green curtain that covers a sea-piece on the wall ; on her left arm is a market-pail. A little dog has its fore-paws on the lady's seat and looks up at her. Above her head hangs a small mirror. To the right is a chair. The picture stands very near to the work of Vermeer of Delft in its yellow and blue tones, in the strongly lit white wall, in the type of face, and in other details ; but the painting is not so dry the only charac- teristic, indeed, by which the two artists can be distinguished from one another in this work. Sm. says : " A singularly clear and luminous effect pervades this picture." Of it and its pendant (185) Sm. says: "These productions, particularly" the pendant, "are of the rarest excellence and beauty." Signed on the letter in the maid-servant's hand: "Mr. Metsu tot Amsterdam Port" ; panel, 21 inches by 16 inches. (Pendant to 185.) Described by Waagen (ii. 116). Exhibited at the British Gallery, 1815 ; at the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition, 1881, No. 125, and 1900, No. 46; at South Kensington Museum, 1891, No. 38 ; at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1900, No. 46. In the same sales and collections as its pendant (185). In the collection of the late Alfred Beit, London. 185. A YOUNG MAN WRITING A LETTER (or, The Letter- Writer). Sm. 20. A young man, in a black silk costume with white wrist-bands and collar, sits writing a letter at a table. He turns his body to the left. His hat hangs on the back of his chair. The table is covered with a Turkey carpet ; on it are a silver inkstand and a wafer-