DUTCH GENRE PAINTING AS RELIGIOUS ART: GABRIEL METSU'S ROMAN CATHOLIC IMAGERY

DUTCH GENRE PAINTING AS RELIGIOUS ART:

GABRIEL METSU’S ROMAN CATHOLIC

IMAGERY

V A L E R I E H E D Q U I S T

Gabriel Metsu (1629–67) painted a range of subjects in several styles as an artist inLeiden and Amsterdam during the seventeenth century. His reputation as apopular genre painter was established by his depictions of solitary figuresreading, writing, or playing music, couples exchanging glances and objectsin interior genre scenes, and crowded outdoor market views. In addition,Metsu completed some portraits and a number of history paintings during hiscareer. His painting technique varied from a broad, loose approach, evidentprimarily in his early works, to a deliberate, highly finished manner thatcharacterized his later paintings. The breadth of theme and style in Metsu’spaintings has led to comparisons with a number of his contemporaries repre-senting different directions in Dutch painting. Gerard Dou, Gerard ter Borch,Pieter de Hooch, Johannes Vermeer, and Frans van Mieris influenced Metsu’sgenre paintings at different stages during his artistic development, while theworks of Jan Baptist Weenix and Nicolaus Knupfer probably influenced his historypainting. Metsu’s apparent willingness to emulate and vary his artistic produc-tion is also evident in several important religious subjects notable in his oeuvre.In this initial study of Metsu’s religious paintings, I will show how specificpictorial details reveal previously unrecognized professional and private asso-ciations with Roman Catholicism and point to patrons eager for images rich inRoman Catholic significance.

M E T S U ’ S PE R S O N A L C O N N E C T I O N S T O R O M A N C AT H O L I C I S MThe distinctive Roman Catholic iconographic features found in severalworks by Metsu are, in part, the result of the painter’s complex relationshipwith the leading artistic, literary, and religious figures of the seventeenth-century Roman Catholic community in tolerant Amsterdam. Included inthis circle were painters, such as Jan Baptist Weenix, Adriaen van der Velde,and Karel Dujardin; poets, such as Joost van den Vondel and Jan Vos;and Roman Catholic priests, such as the Jesuit, Simon Kleyn, and thesecular priest, Father Leonardus Marius, the leader of Amsterdam catho-licism at the Begijnhof. Documents confirm close ties between Metsu and

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-8365.2008.00604.xART HISTORY . ISSN 0141-6790 . VOL 31 NO 2 . APRIL 2008 pp 159-186& Association of Art Historians 2008. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 1599600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

these figures and others who established the religious context for his religious artby publicly promoting the tenets of Roman Catholicism in paintings and prints,in books and on stage, and in sermons and religious rituals.

The scant archival records available regarding Metsu’s family life suggest thathe came from a Roman Catholic background and that this religious orientationcontinued after his move to Amsterdam in 1657. Metsu’s father, Jacques Metsu, apainter from Gouda, and mother, Jacquemijntgen Garnyers, a midwife, weremarried ‘voor schepenen’ (before magistrates) which was typical for RomanCatholic nuptials.1 After a likely apprenticeship with the Roman Catholic painter,Anthonie Claesz de Grebber, Metsu became an independent artist in Leiden at theearly age of eighteen.2 Further training probably took place in Utrecht, a notablestronghold of Catholicism, in the early 1650s with another Roman Catholicpainter, Nicolaus Knupfer.3 In 1654 or 1655, Metsu left Leiden for Amsterdamwhere he established further connections with Roman Catholics.

Soon after moving to Amsterdam, Metsu married Isabella de Wolff inaccordance with Roman Catholic practices. The marriage contract of Metsuand de Wolff was notarized in Amsterdam on 12 April 1658 with Metsu’sprobable Leiden teacher, Anthonie Claesz de Grebber, as a witness.4 On the sameday, the couple had their banns published at the town hall in a category reservedfor Catholics and other sects distinct from the Dutch Reformed church.5 SinceIsabella de Wolff came from a well-established Roman Catholic family, the artistand his bride probably arranged for a Catholic wedding ceremony after the civilformalities as was customary.6 After all, Isabella’s mother, Maria, was a memberof the De Grebber family, who were active Roman Catholics in Haarlem.7 Maria’sbrother, Pieter de Grebber, was the famous painter of local priests and beguinesand another brother, Adolphus de Grebber, was a priest. When Maria de Grebber,married a Catholic man, Wouter de Wolff, ‘voor schepenen’ in Haarlem in 1629,the marriage was witnessed by the influential Haarlem priest, Jan Albert Ban.8

The de Wolff family was also closely associated with the activities of theRoman Catholic Church in the Netherlands. Wouter de Wolff’s brother, Augus-tinus de Wolff, was a priest who served in Haarlem and in Enkhuizen and in1631, Maria de Grebber painted his portrait.9 At the time of his marriage,Metsu became a part of a distinguished and well-established Roman Catholiccommunity in north Holland.

Biographical details of Metsu’s life in Amsterdam after his marriage in 1658are scarce. However, the archival sources corroborate Metsu’s ties to RomanCatholicism. In likely response to the great number of plague deaths in 1663–64,Metsu signed a notarized testament on the feast day of St Mary Magdalene in 1664that named his Roman Catholic wife and mother-in-law, his half-brother and half-sisters,10 and a woman named Jacomina Kool,11 as inheritors of his property.12

Three years later, in 1667, Metsu died in his home. According to church records, hewas buried in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam accompanied by the ringing of bellsin a custom associated with the Roman Catholics, not shared by Protestantdenominations.13 Although burials were popular in both the Oude Kerk andNieuwe Kerk, Roman Catholics preferred the Nieuwe Kerk where Metsu wasburied because the cost of bell ringing was less there than in the Oude Kerk.14

In addition to these events from his private life, Metsu also enjoyed familialties with important Roman Catholic priests and evidently knew other local

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G A B R I E L M E T S U ’ S R O M A N C AT H O L I C I M A G E R Y

clergymen as well. Following the example of his mother-in-law and her brother,Pieter de Grebber, Metsu apparently painted several portraits of priests andperhaps even a nun. Vague references to clerical portraits by Metsu appear fromthe early citation in an Amsterdam sale in 1696, ‘een priester van Gabriel Metsu’,to a depiction of a nun attributed to him in a sale from 1814 recorded by Hofstedede Groot.15 In contrast to these elusive citations, Metsu’s portrait of the Jesuitpriest, Simon Kleyn, was celebrated enough to merit a poem by the famousCatholic poet, Vos, published in 1662.16 In his tribute, Vos recognized Metsu’sartistic abilities and the contributions of Kleyn, the ‘Christian knight’, who wasborn in Amsterdam and served the Ouderkerk Catholic parish until his death in1679.17 This portrait, along with another one or two possible works, confirmsMetsu’s connection with members of the Roman Catholic clergy in the Nether-lands from whom the Dutch painter may have received commissions or intro-ductions to fellow Roman Catholic collectors. In this milieu, Metsu producedreligious images, including his best-known genre painting, entitled Sick Child(plate 1), with specific iconographic details intended for Roman Catholic viewers.

1 Gabriel Metsu, The Sick Child, mid-1660s. Oil on canvas, 32.2 � 27.2 cm.

Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum. Photo: Rijksmuseum.

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M E T S U ’ S S E C U L A R S C E N E OF M O T H E R LY L O V E A S T H E M A D O N N A A N D

C HR I S T C H I L DIn Sick Child, a small intimate painting from the mid-1660s, Metsu depicted awoman with a child on her lap. The figures are arranged frontally in three-quarterlength in the centre of a still, domestic composition. Surrounding compositionalelements enclose the static presentation. Except for the depiction of Christ’scrucifixion on the back wall, all the other objects surrounding the woman andchild are abruptly cut off by the frame, which heightens the proximity and inti-macy of the foreground figures, and accentuates the scene of Golgotha.

Metsu’s subjects have been identified as a mother with a sick child in her lap,although the woman may be a nurse who tends to the child.18 In any case, theconcern and tenderness she expresses toward the child are maternal. The child isprobably a boy, as he is typically identified.19 The clothing worn and shed by thechild are evident in depictions of both young boys and girls, yet the round, flatcap on the chair is typically worn by boys in contrast to the more decorativemillinery attire for girls.20

The young boy’s purported illness is suggested by his lethargy and poorcolour, the discarded clothing on the chair, and by the tender attention thewoman gives to him. The lone porridge pot on the side table intensifies the notionthat a restorative pap has been or will be offered to the listless child. The earliestspecific reference to Metsu’s painting in 1833 recognized the young child as sick;however, doubts regarding this interpretation have occasionally been raised.21

Whether the young boy is ill or simply tired, this type of scene is rarely, if ever,depicted in seventeenth-century Dutch genre painting.22

A religious interpretation of Metsu’s painting was first proposed by Eddy deJongh in 1976 when he related the depiction of the mother and her sick child toimages of Christian Charity.23 Allegorical representations of Charity, however,usually show a woman with two or more children, as in Metsu’s Justice ProtectingWidows and Orphans (Mauritshuis, The Hague), or in family portraiture, as inFerdinand Bol’s Johanna Trip-de Geer as Caritas with Her Children (Trippenhuis,Amsterdam).24 Furthermore, depictions of Charity often include additionalsymbolic features, such as fruit to suggest fecundity or a column or a dog torepresent faithfulness and constancy. In contrast, the unusual pose and expres-sion of the child in the woman’s lap and the juxtaposition of the figures with apainting of the Crucifixion in the background point to an alternative religiousinterpretation of the Sick Child.

The striking pose chosen by Metsu for his portrayal of a woman and childis pointedly odd. The bare legs of the child hang down in the foreground ofthe composition and fall across the lap of the woman in a manner identified byLeo Steinberg as the ‘slung leg.’25 According to Steinberg, this pose occursregularly in a number of Renaissance and Baroque representations of Christ asan infant in the lap of the Virgin Mary at the nativity and as an adult atthe lamentation. Furthermore, in seventeenth-century Dutch painting, nudityor partial nudity is often a convention for a depiction of a deceased child or aClassical or religious infant, such as Hercules, Ganymede, or Christ.26 With thepeculiar pose of the child with his exposed legs, Metsu followed establishedpictorial precedents for the depiction of Christ in the lap of his mother, Mary,at the beginning and end of his life.



The parallel between the mother and child in Metsu’s painting and repre-sentations of the Madonna and Christ, as both a child and an adult, is heightenedby the presence of a crucifixion painting on the wall in the background. Thisgrisaille painting resembles Metsu’s own representation of this scene (plate 2),painted at approximately the same time as the Sick Child. In both of his images ofthe Crucifixion, Metsu showed Christ on the cross prior to his placement in thelap of the Virgin Mary. The visual and theological associations between thecrucifixion scene on the back wall and the Pieta pose of the woman and childfurther suggest their association with Mary and Christ.

The similarities between the traditional pose of the Virgin and Child in bothnativity and Pieta imagery and Metsu’s depiction of a Dutch woman and sickchild have been repeatedly noted by scholars since 1974 when Franklin Robinsonrecognized this correspondence and stated that Metsu’s moving image of the palechild on his mother’s lap, ‘inevitably reminds us of the Pieta and the Crucifixionon the wall behind’.27 Although Metsu did not include obvious Marian signs, asevident in Pieter de Grebber’s work of a veiled mother nursing her child (FransHals Museum, Haarlem), the overall religious tone in Metsu’s painting is inten-sified by the frontality and proximity to the viewer’s space of the woman andchild, as well as by the solemnity of the static, orderly setting.

Both the pictorial presentation of the figures and the iconographic juxtaposi-tions in the Sick Child support a religious interpretation for this work. Significantly,

2 Gabriel Metsu, Crucifixion,

1660s. Oil on canvas, 70 � 52

cm. Rome: Capitoline

Museum. Photo: Capitoline

Museum.



Metsu’s painting seems to have beeninfluenced specifically by engravingsafter Michelangelo’s sculpted marblePieta (plate 3). The dangling bare legs ofthe child and the figural relationshipbetween woman and child in Metsu’spainting compare favourably with thepresentation of the Virgin and Child inengravings after the Pieta, completedin 1499 for the French Cardinal JeanBilheres de Lagraulas.28 The sculpturewas immediately recognized as amasterpiece by the young Florentinesculptor and was subsequently copiedin engravings that disseminatedMichelangelo’s composition and con-tent throughout Europe during thesixteenth and seventeenth centu-ries.29 Although many northern artistswere familiar with this iconographywhich, after all, began in the northwith the traditional Vesperbildimages, the direct impact of Michel-angelo’s work came only to those who

travelled to Rome or those who had contact with the various prints based onMichelangelo’s work.

Among the printmakers to popularize this scene, by far the best knownwas Agostino Carracci whose print from 1579 shows the Pieta group in a posethat precisely records the arrangement of the figures in Michelangelo’s originalwork (plate 4).30 In the north, Carracci’s contemporary, Hendrick Goltziusengraved his version of the Pieta in 1596 (plate 5). While intentionally imitatingthe printmaking facility of his predecessor, Albrecht D .urer, Goltzius alsorelied on his own personal observations of Michelangelo’s Pieta in Rome,and on compositional elements that appear in the print by Carracci.31 Impor-tantly, as a possible northern pictorial and iconographic source for Metsu,Goltzius’s image includes a scene from Golgotha in the upper right handcorner of his print in a position that parallels the placement of the Crucifixionin Metsu’s representation of the woman and child. In all of these engrav-ings after Michelangelo, the orientation of the figures directly mirrors thefigural grouping in the Pieta, an arrangement that Metsu reversed in hispainting.32

Compositional similarities, such as the position of Christ’s limp legs, the fallof his loose arm in the folds of white fabric, and the gaze and em-bracing gesture of the woman toward the child, indicate some dependency on theItalian prototype for Metsu’s Sick Child. Even the arrangement of the whiteundergarment across the child’s lap mirrors the winding sheet drawn across thebody of Christ in the engravings after Michelangelo’s Pieta. One further associa-tion between Michelangelo’s Pieta and Metsu’s painting may explain why the

3 Michelangelo, Pieta, 1499. Marble, 174�195 cm.

Rome: The Vatican. Photo: Alinari.



Dutch painter chose to depict a sick child, wearily sprawled on a woman’s lap, asan evocation of the Christian Pieta.

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Michelangelo’s sculpture wasrelocated several times. However, its placement, together with a venerated four-teenth-century healing depiction of the Virgin and Child and a cross, in theCappella della Vergine Maria della Febbre, or the chapel of the Virgin Mary of theFever, became a significant and widely recorded feature.33 The connection betweenMichelangelo’s Pieta and the miraculous image of the Madonna della Febbre wasnoted by Giorgio Vasari in both the 1550 and 1568 editions of his Vite and waspublished in the Netherlands by Karel van Mander in 1604.34 In addition to notingthat the Pieta was associated with the Madonna della Febbre, Van Mander also high-lighted the convincing representation of death conveyed by the naked limbs inMichelangelo’s Christ figure. The similarities between Michelangelo’s Pieta andMetsu’s painting of a sick child imply that the Dutch artist followed Van Mander’swritten commentary as well as looked to the wealth of graphic reproductions afterMichelangelo’s sculpture. The Sick Child also demonstrates Metsu’s ability to trans-form the Italian religious prototype into a northern image of intimate domesticitywhile retaining its significance as a depiction of the Virgin Mary and Christ.

Metsu is not known to have ever left the northern Netherlands. However, he

4 Agostino Carracci, Pieta, 1579. Engraving, 449 � 304 mm. Vienna: Graphische Sammlung, Albertina.

Photo: Faraglia.

5 Hendrik Goltzius, Pieta, 1596. Engraving, 187 � 127 mm. Lawrence, Kansas: Spencer Museum of Art.

Photo: Spencer Museum of Art.



may have been introduced to Italian graphic arts by his association with JanBaptist Weenix, who travelled to Italy and incorporated Roman Catholic icono-graphy into his paintings.35 In the period immediately following his return fromRome, Weenix painted the Rest on the Flight into Egypt (plate 6) from c. 1647–50 as acontemporary event with figures in modern dress that anticipates the religiousgenre scene of Metsu’s Sick Child. In his work, Weenix showed the Virgin andChrist Child resting in the foreground while Joseph leads away a donkey in thecenter distance. Christ holds the customary Christian symbols of the dove andapple, while in the background timbers in the haystack form a cross. Theseelements transform Weenix’s secular Italianate scene into a work with religioussignificance.

Weenix’s painting of the Rest on the Flight to Egypt and Metsu’s Sick Child sharepictorial and iconographic affinities. Both artists placed the similarly posed anddressed women close to the picture plane holding a child whose naked legscontinue a tradition of depicting the Christ Child as partially nude. Both Weenixand Metsu juxtaposed the figural group of the Madonna and Christ Child in theforeground with references to the Crucifixion in the background. These resem-blances indicate either the direct influence of Weenix’s composition on Metsu’spainting, or the availability of a common source to both artists, such as repro-ductions of Michelangelo’s Pieta. In fact, the cross appears in many sixteenth- and

6 Jan Baptiste Weenix, Rest on the Flight into Egypt, c. 1647–50. Oil on canvas,

50.3 � 41.9 cm. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art. Photo:

Philadelphia Museum of Art.



seventeenth-century paintings and prints of the Madonna and infant Christ as anallusion to the Passion and specifically to the final, terrestrial moments betweenmother and child represented by the Pieta.

Weenix and Metsu included crucifixion imagery in their paintings repre-senting more or less straightforward depictions of the Madonna and Child inorder to refer to the inevitable sacrifice on the cross at the end of Christ’s life.Numerous textual and pictorial sources indicate how conventional these asso-ciations were. In publications by contemporary Roman Catholic writers, such asthe Jesuits Adriaen Poirters and Jodicus Andries, the cross appears at the nativityas a foreshadowing of Christ’s Passion and death.36 For example, in his book, HetDuyfken in de Steen Rotse (1665), Poirters referred to the meditations of St Birgitta ofSweden (1303–73) where images of the Crucifixion haunt the Virgin Mary’srecollections of Christ’s infancy:

When she held Him in her arms, then before her appeared the cross where He would be nailed.

When she looked at Him sleeping in her lap, then appeared before her eyes how he would be

taken from the cross and laid in her lap for the last time.37

In Het Duyfken, and perhaps in Metsu’s Sick Child, the swaddling cloth of Christ’sinfancy foreshadows the winding sheets of his death and both are linked to thealtar cloth of the Roman Catholic mass.38 This main theme of the entire devo-tional book is set forth by an introductory print in which Christ lies in themanger holding the instruments of the Passion (plate 7).

The cross of the Crucifixion as a portent of Christ’s sacrifice is presented to theMadonna and Child by an angel orangels in at least two additional printsproduced by the highly influentialWierix family.39 In the image byAnton Wierix, the mother and childwelcome the angelic apparition in adomestic setting, and Christ sits inhis mother’s lap in an outdoorlocation in the work by Jan Wierix(plate 8).40 These contemporary devo-tional sources, frequently employedby the Jesuits, reveal the importanceof uniting the human, domesticrealm of Christ’s life, especially hisinfancy and childhood when he iswith his mother, the Virgin Mary,and his sacrificial, spiritual missionon earth as an adult. By presentingChrist in the lap of the Virgin Mary with a cross in the background, the paintingsof Weenix and Metsu also convey the associations between the worldly beginningand spiritual end of Christ’s life.

In addition to the religious significance of Metsu’s Sick Child, a contemporaryevent that adversely affected the entire Dutch population must have played somepart in determining the subject matter of Metsu’s moving image of a woman and

7 Infant Christ with Instruments of the Passion, from

Adriaen Poirters, Het Duyfken in de Steen-Rotse,

1665, Antwerp. Photo: Universiteits-Bibliotheek,

Amsterdam.



a sick child. Remarkably, the misery of the plague has not been previously linkedto the painting of a Sick Child. During the seventeenth century, the plagueafflicted the Dutch population in successive waves of intensity, with particularvirulence in 1601–3, 1623–25, 1635–36, in 1655–56 and again in 1663–64 whenMetsu probably completed the Sick Child.41 In fact, the plague lurked as a threatthroughout Metsu’s short life.42 As a child, Metsu survived the plague season of1635 when 20%–25% of the Leiden population died.43 In the years 1655–56, whenMetsu moved from Leiden to Amsterdam, the plague claimed as many as 10,489victims in Leiden and 16,727 lives in Amsterdam.44 Yet, the plague years of 1663–64 were even worse. In Amsterdam, eerie evening lights, comets, and falling starsseemed to foreshadow the plague that killed 9,752 people in 1663 and another24,148 in 1664.45 During the summer and autumn of 1664, as many as 800 to1,000 people died every week and Amsterdam was described as a city clothedentirely in mourning.46 Probably in response to the loss of life that surrounded

8 Jan Wierix, Foreshadowing

the Passion, before 1620.

Engraving, 103 � 65 mm.

Paris: Cabinet des Estampes,

Bibliotheque Nationale.

Photo: Bibliotheque

Nationale Service

Photographique.



them, Metsu and his wife made last testaments on 22 July 1664 when 676 diedduring that week in Amsterdam.47 The couple survived the plague that year andin January of the new year, the Dutch population gave thanks for the end of theplague, which by that time had moved on to London where one-sixth to one-quarter of the population died in 1665.48

Sometime during the harshest years of the Amsterdam plague epidemic,Metsu painted a weak child comforted in the lap of his mother or nurse with itsattendant pictorial evocation of the Madonna and Christ Child. Metsu’s secularscene presents a likely scenario from any number of homes in which parents, whohad little understanding of how the illness was transmitted or avoided, cared forchildren who were particularly vulnerable.49 In plague books from the sixteenthand seventeenth centuries, writers consistently describe the plague as a diseasethat was sent by God as punishment for human sin.50 According to many sources,the divine retribution came through bad, damp air that mysteriously spread thedisease.51 Physical manifestations of the pestilence included obvious signs, suchas plague buboes, blisters, and haemorrhaging, as well as less specific symptoms,such as headaches, body pains, and fever.52 Metsu’s child has the wan appearancethat corresponds to the characteristics of many plague victims who were oftendescribed as thirsty, sweaty, hot, nauseous, and often delirious.53 Sweating cureswere highly recommended for feverish sufferers and numerous recipes for papsand plasters were recommended to break the fever.54 In general, physiciansrecommended that a sick child should be held in the mother’s lap, close to herbody with the touch of her hands comforting him or her.55 Since physicalremedies could not be counted on to heal anyone during this trying time, mosttracts recommended prayer and divine healing as the most valuable measures.

Books and pamphlets addressing the physical and spiritual burdens of theplague were published every year of the seventeenth century with peak productionduring or immediately following the harshest years of the epidemic.56 In general,both Protestant and Roman Catholic texts recommended prayers to God theFather, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins and healing. Inaddition, publications for Roman Catholic audiences, such as Troost der Siecken endeVerleden by the Delft Jesuit, Lodewijk Makeblijde, set out a programme for caringfor the sick with an emphasis on the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist andextreme unction or the anointing of the sick with holy oil, prayers to the VirginMary and the saints, and the use of devotional tools such as depictions of Christ onthe cross and the rosary.57 The Roman Catholic reliance on these measures,especially the reverence for the Virgin Mary, was so well known that the CalvinistSimon Oomius dismissed them as papist nonsense in his work from 1665.58

Although Protestant and Roman Catholic writers recommended different spiritualresponses to the plague, all authors agreed that ‘the plague is sent by God’ andonly Jesus Christ ‘will save you from the pestilence’.59

In Metsu’s Sick Child, the human suffering of Christ is conveyed straightfor-wardly by the Crucifixion painting on the back wall and somewhat more obli-quely by the deposition pose of the child in the lap of his mother. During theheight of the plague in Amsterdam, the close, personal concern of a Dutch nurseor mother with her child during a period of illness served as a vehicle for areflection of the love and attentiveness of the Virgin Mary for her son, Christ,during his infancy and adult life. Metsu’s painting, with its emphatic correlation



to iconic images of the Virgin Mary and Christ, corresponds to the type of devo-tional image that the Roman Catholic community of Amsterdam would look to asthey confronted the uncertainties of the plague. As an accomplished master ofDutch genre painting, Metsu maintained his convincing representational stylewhen he turned away from secular scenes and painted occasional examples ofovertly religious art. A closer look at these paintings provides additional evidenceof Metsu’s engagement with Roman Catholicism.

ME T S U ’ S C O N V E N T I O N A L R E L I G I O U S I M A G E RYFrom his early years as an artist in Leiden to his premature death in Amsterdamin 1667 at the age of thirty-eight years, Metsu occasionally turned to religioussubject matter in his art. Paintings of Old and New Testament narrativesdate from as early as 1653 in Christ and the Adulterous Woman (Musee duLouvre, Paris) to as late as the year of his death when Metsu depicted Christappearing to Mary Magdalene in the Noli Me Tangere (plate 9). In addition to

9 Gabriel Metsu, Noli Me Tangere, 1667. Oil on panel, 63.7 � 51 cm. Vienna:

Kunsthistorisches Museum. Photo: Kunsthistorisches Museum.



these and other biblical themes, such as the Dismissal of Hagar (de Lakenhal,Leiden), The Widow’s Mite (Staatliches Museum, Schwerin), and a Crucifixion, Metsualso depicted the mass in a Roman Catholic church interior (plate 10).60 Thispainting, from approximately 1662–63, was previously in the Schonborn-Buchheimcollection in Vienna, but is now lost.

10 Gabriel Metsu, Adoration of the Eucharist, c. 1662–63. Oil on panel, 56 � 41 cm. Location

unknown. Photo: Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie.



In this seldom-reproduced painting, Metsu set forth the central doctrineof the Roman Catholic church, the eucharistic mystery of the altar when thebread and wine are transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ. Thecomplexities of the iconography of Metsu’s painting are uncommon in the Dutchgenre painter’s oeuvre and suggest that the artist looked to a theological sourcefamiliar to him for this unusual religious scene. From the wealth of seventeenth-century publications regarding the real presence of Christ, a didactic poemcelebrating the mystery of the altar, the Altaergeheimenissen of 1645 by theDutch Roman Catholic poet, Joost van den Vondel emerges as the specificunderpinning for Metsu’s Roman Catholic work.61 Compositional and icono-graphic similarities between Metsu’s painting and the Altaergeheimenissen confirmthe influence on Metsu of Vondel’s text and the title-page print (plate 11) byTheodore Matham.62

11 Theodore

Mathem, after

Cornelis Galle,

title-page print

to Joost van den

Vondel’s Antaerge-

heimenissen, 1645.

Photo: Universi-

teits-

Bibliotheek,

Amsterdam.



The interiors depicted in Metsu’s painting and Matham’s print are notablysimilar. In both images, female figures gesture toward the elevated altar wherethe host is reserved in an elaborate eucharistic vessel. According to Vondel’s poemthat accompanies Matham’s print, the female figure standing at the altar perso-nifies Catholic faith who confronts five women representing the senses who mustsubmit to faith in order to believe the miracle at the altar.63 The meaning of theprint is fully realized by Metsu in his painting of the Adoration of the Eucharistwhere the kneeling woman turns away from the basket of fruit and flowers in theforeground, a reference to the powers of the senses, and points to the ciboriumcontaining the real presence of Christ on the altar.

Eucharistic symbolism recurs in Metsu’s paintings of the Crucifixion andthe Noli Me Tangere as primary motifs that would appeal to a specificallyRoman Catholic audience. In his Crucifixion (plate 2), painted sometime in the1660s during the same period as the Adoration of the Eucharist and the SickChild, Metsu depicted a traditional scene of the crucified Christ that stronglyresembles the same subject by Counter-Reformation Italian artists such asGuido Reni, Annibale Carracci, or Federico Barocci.64 As in many Italian depic-tions, Christ is silhouetted against a dark, empty background and elevatedabove the mourners, John the Evangelist, the Virgin Mary, and Mary Magdalene,in a devotional image that avoids any narrative distractions. Objects withsymbolic significance, however, are clearly accentuated by Metsu in theimmediate foreground. For example, Mary Magdalene’s unguent jar rests ona carefully arranged white cloth directly below the penitent saint’s body in apresentation that corresponds closely to a ciborium on a linen corporal at analtar. The lid has been removed from this vessel in order to receive the body ofChrist in a direct parallel to its liturgical function as a container of consecratedeucharistic wafers. For Roman Catholics, this reference to the Eucharist at theCrucifixion fittingly underscores the celebration of the mass as a reenactment ofChrist’s sacrifice on the cross.65 In Metsu’s depiction of the Crucifixion, the crossstands between the liturgical still life of the eucharistic vessel and an arrange-ment of skull and bones symbolizing the death of Adam and the fall of man. Theredemption of man by Christ’s death, which is celebrated daily by the mass of theRoman Catholic church, is communicated by Metsu in his compositionalarrangement of eucharistic symbolism.

In a further articulation of Roman Catholic devotional interests, Metsuaccentuated the role of Mary Magdalene in his Crucifixion. Occupying the centralposition in the composition in a warm, golden dress, Mary Magdalene is strikinglyilluminated by a strong light as she kneels at the foot of the cross. In a pose thatresembles the female personification of Catholic faith in Metsu’s Adoration of theEucharist, Mary Magdalene acknowledges the eucharistic significance of Christ’ssacrifice of body and blood by embracing the cross with one hand while the otherhand rests on her breast in a gesture of devotion and humility.66

An interest in the penitent saint, Mary Magdalene, and the Eucharist is alsoevident in Metsu’s late painting Noli Me Tangere (plate 9) for which the Dutch artistonce again looked for inspiration to a print, in this case a work by Luca Ciamberlanoafter Barocci.67 In this work, Mary Magdalene reacts to the surprisingappearance of the idealized figure of the resurrected Christ who displays thephysical wounds of the Crucifixion. For Roman Catholics, the representation of



Christ’s body and bloody wounds corresponds to the bread and wine of the dailymass. As in his Crucifixion, Metsu again presented Mary Magdalene’s attribute as aciborium on the corporal of the Roman Catholic altar. However, the eucharisticvessel is more starkly isolated on the white cloth in the centre foreground and thelid now securely closes the container for the gift of Christ’s sacrifice has beenaccomplished. In a final affirmation of the eucharistic meaning of the scene, Metsualso included a grape vine winding around an upright pole at the far right of thecomposition. Here, the verticality of the young vine visually reiterates the positionof the resurrected Christ and the ciborium in the center foreground. By high-lighting the symbolic jar of Mary Magdalene as a eucharistic vessel in the Crucifixionand the Noli Me Tangere, Metsu drew attention to the oil that cleansed Christ’s bodyduring the Passion as well as the purifying eucharistic meal of the daily RomanCatholic mass.

As a painter of religious art in the 1660s, Metsu joined an ongoing rejuve-nation of local Roman Catholic piety. This revitalization began when Vondel’sAltaergeheimenissen appeared in 1645 as part of a cooperative effort by the RomanCatholic community to observe the 300th anniversary of the 1345 eucharisticmiracle of Amsterdam, when a consecrated host remained intact despite havingbeen eaten, regurgitated, and burned, and subsequently performed healingmiracles. Vondel’s poem followed an earlier commemoration of the miracle byFather Marius who served central Amsterdam at the Begijnhof until his death in1652.68 Yearly processions and pilgrimages that celebrated the miracle wereforbidden after 1578, and by 1590 the chapel of the Heilige Stede, where themiraculous host was venerated, was renamed the Nieuwezijds Kapel by Calvinistcity officials and given over to the Dutch Reformed church.69 Despite thesemeasures, public and private commemorations of the eucharistic miraclecontinued throughout the seventeenth century in the ‘mirakelstad’ (miracle city)of Amsterdam. Devout Roman Catholics gathered outside the site of the medievalhost miracle while reformers worshipped inside; and at Roman Catholic centers,such as the Begijnhof, believers promoted a renewed devotion to the miracle.70

Documents contemporary with Metsu’s painting of the Adoration of theEucharist indicate that Roman Catholic devotion to the eucharistic miracle hadnot waned with the passing of the century. At the height of the plague in 1664,Calvinist ministers protested against the public demonstration of popish super-stition in a letter to city officials, who denounced two impudent ‘kloppen’, ordevout women, who recited Our Fathers and Hail Marys without respect for theProtestant congregation worshipping in the Nieuwezijds Kapel.71 In his Beschry-vinge van Amsterdam from 1665, Isa.ac Commelin noted that pilgrims, many bare-footed, continued to circle the chapel, especially during the time before the feastof Corpus Christi.72

While public devotions to the miracle of Amsterdam aroused suspicionamong the Calvinist civic and religious officials, open demonstrations of RomanCatholic piety were uncommon. Instead, daily mass typically occurred unobtru-sively and without incident in privately owned houses, shops, and warehousesthroughout the city in exchange for a monetary payment to civic officials.73 InMetsu’s Adoration of the Eucharist, the bishop’s entrance into a small room cele-brates the act of worship in a typical setting for Roman Catholic mass during theseventeenth century in the northern Netherlands.



Nothing in Metsu’s depicted sanctuary can be related to a specific church.However, a number of Roman Catholic places of worship were located in theartist’s neighbourhood in Amsterdam and could have provided direct inspirationfor his painted setting in the Adoration of the Eucharist. Metsu lived down an alleyon the east side of the Prinsengracht, south of the Rheestraat Bridge, north of theBerenstraat and across from the Lauriersgracht.74 In the 1656 list of RomanCatholic establishments in the city, a house on the Prinsengracht near Metsu’shouse was cited by the Dutch Reformed Church council as a place where a priestlived and openly celebrated Catholic services.75 Metsu and his wife also livedfairly close to the large and well-established Begijnhof. Furthermore, a number ofother Roman Catholic churches served by both secular and regular clergy flour-ished in Metsu’s neighbourhood. The Catholic activities were not a secret to thereformers who noted with some irritation the numerous public displays ofCatholic worship. At the Franciscan church on the Kalverstraat, three Franciscanpriests were regularly seen, and occasionally what was described as a bishop wasobserved.76 The bishop entering the room in Metsu’s painting was, therefore, notentirely atypical in Amsterdam at mid-century.

In consideration of contemporary modes of Roman Catholic worship, Metsu’ssmall panel painting of the Adoration of the Eucharist may have served therequirements of a local hidden church or the devotional needs of a private patronor organization. Established shortly after the eucharistic miracle of 1345, the StCecilia Brotherhood was one of several associations that continued to workclandestinely after 1578.77 In seventeenth-century Amsterdam, the St CeciliaBrotherhood celebrated mass and sang praises to the transubstantiated bread andwine of the altar on Thursdays throughout the year and specifically on the feastday of St Cecilia, 22 November.78

In 1672, approximately ten years after Metsu painted the Adoration of theEucharist, the St Cecilia members signed guild regulations. Among the signatorieswere members of the three Roman Catholic charitable organizations inAmsterdam including two regents of the boys’ orphanage, the Jongenweeshuis,which had only recently opened near Metsu’s house at the end of the Lauriers-gracht in response to the high number of plague deaths in 1663–64.79

The membership reveals that some of the most influential men of the seven-teenth-century Catholic community in Amsterdam participated in the presti-gious guild of St. Cecilia dedicated to the adoration of the eucharist andthe care of the Roman Catholic poor. The overlapping interests of this notablegroup of men may explain a commission for the Adoration of the Eucharist fromMetsu.

Metsu had already completed a painting that is linked to a charitable orga-nization when he depicted Justice Protecting Widows and Orphans at mid-century forMichiel van Peenen, a regent of the Leiden huiszittenhuis.80 Furthermore, Metsu’sties to the Roman Catholic faith, especially his pictorial interests and professionaland familial connections, and his reputation as a fashionable painter inAmsterdam would have made him an appropriate choice for a commission fromthe St Cecilia guild. Finally, pictorial references to St Cecilia in one of Metsu’sgenre depictions of music making also supports a connection between the DutchCatholic painter, Metsu, and the guild dedicated to the saint and the Eucharistin Amsterdam.



12 Gabriel Metsu, Woman Playing the Viola da Gamba, 1663. Oil on panel, 43.9 � 36.1 cm.

San Francisco: M.H. de Young Museum, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Roscoe and Margaret Oakes

Collection. Photo: M.H. de Young Museum.



M E T S U ’ S G E N R E S C E N E O F A M U S I C - M A K I N G W O M A N A S S T C E C I L I AThe painting of a woman playing a viola da gamba in a domestic interior (plate 12)is one of several musical scenes Metsu completed after he arrived in Amsterdamin 1663. In contrast to scenes in which women play for a depicted or impliedaudience in a social setting, the work shows a solitary woman in a sumptuoussatin dress posed with her instrument in the centre of the composition.Additional details encircling the player, such as the dancing dog, the book ofmusic, and the extinguished candle on the table, the bedpost carving of a boundfemale and the column framed by the arched doorway in the right background,seem appropriate for an image of secular music making. Yet, these same featuressupport the identification of the woman as the patron saint of music, St Cecilia.

A religious interpretation of this painting has not been previously considered.Instead, Metsu’s painting has been understood through associations with the richemblematic sources of the seventeenth century. Both Ben Broos and Peter Suttonlooked to an emblem from Ripa’s Iconologia and to a drawing by Maerten de Vosto identify the woman as representing faithfulness.81 By comparing the SanFrancisco work with Metsu’s portrait of his wife (plate 13), Broos argued furtherthat Metsu had depicted his spouse, Isabella de Wolff, in a scene specificallyaddressing marital harmony and fidelity.82 In this way, Metsu followed theconventions of other seventeenth-century Dutch genre painters, such as JanMiense Molenaer, who painted music-making scenes as allegories of maritalhappiness.83

Broos and Sutton proposed a convincing interpretation of Metsu’s work basedon popular pictorial sources. However, the secular qualities of Metsu’s paintinghave obscured its additional religious significance as a portrait of his wife in theguise of St Cecilia. Depicting family members and, in particular, spouses ashistorical, classical, or religious figures was a seventeenth-century portrait

13 Gabriel Metsu, Portrait of the Artist’s Wife,

c. 1658–60. Oil on panel, 21.6 � 17.1 cm.

Louisville, Kentucky: J.B. Speed Art Museum.

Photo: J.B. Speed Art Museum.



convention.84 For example, Rembrandtportrayed his wife, Saskia, as thegoddess Flora in a painting from 1634(Hermitage, St Petersburg) and bothRembrandt and Metsu painted theparable of the Prodigal Son where theartists are accompanied by their wives(both Gem.aldegalerie, Dresden).85

Within this tradition, it can be sug-gested that Metsu’s depiction of theisolated woman gazing heavenwardplaying the viola da gamba is a portraitof his wife Isabella as St Cecilia, afaithful Christian wife and patronsaint of music.

The fifth-century legend of her lifeand martyrdom established the asso-ciation of St Cecilia with marriage andmusic.86 According to Early Christiansources, St Cecilia married a Romanpatrician named Valerian whomshe converted to Christianity. Afterher husband and his brother weresentenced to death for their faith andafter the widowed saint buried them,

she too was destined for martyrdom. St Cecilia survived an initial sentence of deathby suffocation in the steamy bath of her own house, but eventually succumbed tothe blows of a Roman executioner sent to behead her. Over time, St Cecilia becamethe patron saint of music and musicians because traditional sources related thatwhile musicians played at her wedding, Cecilia sang only to the Lord in her heart.87

Despite her rejection of earthly music, St Cecilia is frequently depicted with amusical instrument. Among her early attributes is the portable organ whichappears in Raphael’s painting completed in 1517 (plate 14).88 A century later,Domenichino depicted a similar standing figure, looking upward and playing amusical instrument in his painting from approximately 1617 (plate 15).89 Dome-nichino was one of many seventeenth-century artists who depicted the popularpatron saint of music after her uncorrupted body was recovered in the church of StCecilia in Trastevere in 1599 and rekindled the veneration of the saint in art andmusic.90 In his work, Domenichino substituted the viola da gamba for the organand established a new musical attribute for the saint.

A comparison of the paintings by Domenichino and Metsu reveals conspi-cuous similarities in the attributes and the poses and expressions of the femalefigures. In addition to the adoption of the viola da gamba as St Cecilia’s musicalattribute, both painters included musical scores as iconographic embellishments.The saint ignores the worldly music as she plays and looks upward toward thecelestial music in both the Italian and Dutch representations. Following theprototype established by Raphael in his Renaissance depiction, both Domenichinoand Metsu emphasized the saint’s elegant dress and added jewels and sheer black

14 Raphael, Saint Cecilia, 1517. Oil on canvas

(transferred from panel), 238 � 150 cm.

Bologna: Pinacoteca. Photo: Pinacoteca.



veils to her refined attire. Although Domenichino accentuated the devotional roleof his St Cecilia by isolating her against a dark background, while Metsu placed hisrepresentation of the saint in a domestic interior, the similarities between thetwo works suggest a relationship between the southern and northern Europeaninterpretations.

Domenichino’s painting was enormously popular. Shortly after its completionin 1617, painted copies and reproductive engravings appeared throughoutEurope, making it entirely possible that Metsu knew the Italian artist’s depictionof St Cecilia (plate 16).91 As he had done previously with the Sick Child, theAdoration of the Eucharist, and Noli Me Tangere, Metsu looked to an engraving as apictorial precedent when he painted his music-making woman.

Metsu was not alone among northern seventeenth-century artists who followedsouthern painters in depicting the patron saint of music. For example, St Ceciliaplays the viola da gamba in a Flemish work, attributed to Anthony van Dyck, from c.1632–40 (Location unknown; plate 17).92 A dog lies at her feet in the lower left-handcorner as an allusion, commonly found in northern marriage portraits, to herfidelity and faith.93 The column on the left side of the painting is a religioussymbol of spiritual strength and steadfastness as referred to in Revelations 3:12.94

The column also appears in contemporary emblems and prints as an attribute of

15 Domenichino, Saint Cecilia, 1617. Oil on canvas, 160 � 120 cm. Paris: Louvre. Photo: R.M.N.,

Service Photographique de la Reunion des Musees Nationaux.

16 Etienne Picart, after Domenichino, Saint Cecilia, c. 1660s. Engraving, 284 � 178 mm.

Paris: Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliotheque Nationale. Photo: Bibliotheque Nationale Service

Photographique.



fortitude or, as in Ripa’s illustration of a woman standing with her arm around acolumn, as a symbol of constancy.95

These Christian symbols reappear in Rubens’s painting of St Cecilia from1639–40 (plate 18), which was popularized by an engraving by Hans Witdoeck.96

Rubens’ depiction of St Cecilia seated at the virginal returns to earlier representa-tions of the saint with an organ; however, the dog and column are retained asallegorical attributes underscoring the marital and religious faithfulness of thesaint.97 Significantly, Rubens portrayed his wife, Helene Fourment, as St Cecilia in acasual manner that is suggested by the relaxed, barefoot woman playing thevirginal.98 The blending of the personal portrait of a spouse with the depiction of ahistorical religious figure is also evident in Metsu’s representation of his spouse inthe guise of the faithful and devoted St Cecilia in a Dutch interior.

Like its northern counterparts, Metsu’s painting differs from Italian modelsby depicting his wife as St Cecilia in an interior domestic setting, thus empha-sizing the personal, intimate domain. The playful dog begging in the foregroundof Metsu’s painting may refer to the saint’s conjugal faithfulness, as this tradi-tional symbol of fidelity had in the paintings of the Flemish artists.99 As in theother northern European depictions, the column that is framed by an archway onthe right hand side of Metsu’s composition stands in upright alignment with StCecilia as a testament to her unwavering resilience. Metsu enriched his depictionof the saint by adding another traditional northern symbol, the extinguishedcandle, which may refer to St Cecilia’s impending martyrdom.100

17 Anthony van Dyck, Saint Cecilia, c. 1632–40. Location unknown. Photo: Luca Verlag Freren.

18 Peter Paul Rubens, Saint Cecilia, c. 1639–40. Oil on panel, 177 � 139 cm. Berlin: Staatliche Museen

PreuXischer Kulturbesitz Gem.aldegalerie. Photo: Jorg P. Anders.



The theme of sacrifice and impending death is further underscored in Metsu’spainting by the unusual depiction of a bound nude woman carved in the bedpostin the centre background. In his discussion of Metsu’s painting, Broos identifiedthe bound female as Andromeda, but did not explain her inclusion.101 Yet, hertale of innocence and sacrifice recommends Andromeda as a fitting corollary tothe martyrdom of St Cecilia. As recounted in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the sacrifice ofAndromeda and her eventual rescue by and marriage to Perseus became enor-mously popular with commentators who found political, moral, and religiousparallels in her ordeal.102

Many Dutch translations and interpretations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses,including a version by Karel van Mander, familiarized Dutch artists withAndromeda’s story.103 In fact, during the late sixteenth and early seventeenthcenturies, etchings and engravings of Andromeda bound to a rocky coast withPerseus arriving by sea were the most commonly produced of all the Ovidianstories.104 These images confirm the popularity of Andromeda’s story for theDutch with its political parallels to contemporary events in which Andromedarepresented the beleaguered Netherlands rescued from the sea monster, Spain, byPerseus, who was the classical prefiguration of either William the Silent or thestadhouder, Frederick Hendrick.105

In addition to the political comparisons, Andromeda could also inspire Chris-tian allegorizations ranging from general associations with sacrifice and deliver-ance to more specific ties to martyrdom.106 For example, van Mander concluded hisinterpretation of the story by identifying Andromeda as representing the pious,especially during times of great need, who would be delivered by God, as repre-sented by Perseus.107 The philosopher, Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) consideredAndromeda a classical counterpart to Christian martyrs who had suffered a kind ofcrucifixion, and in the Ovide Moralise, Perseus is Christ and Andromeda is thehuman soul united to Christ by the sacraments of marriage, baptism,and confession.108 The relationship between Andromeda and the sacrifice of Christon the cross, noted by these scholars and others, was fostered, in part, by the shapeof the cross formed by the constellation of Andromeda in the night sky.109 Theassociations that accentuate the victimization and liberation of Andromedacontributed to the correlation between the classical heroine and Christian martyrs.With this comparison in mind, the bound female of the bedpost serves as a typo-logical correspondence to the virgin martyr St Cecilia, and further underscores thereligious orientation of Metsu’s genre painting.

The traditional symbols of the saint are enhanced in Metsu’s painting by anadditional contemporary detail that also contributes to the identification ofMetsu’s female figure as St Cecilia. The sheer black veil worn by St Ceciliaresembles those worn by widows and women in mourning in the seventeenthcentury. For example, the veil appears in mid-century portraits of widows by artistssuch as Jan van Noordt and Abraham van den Tempel, as well as in Metsu’s religiousand allegorical scenes of widows, including The Widow’s Mite (Staatliches Museum,Schwerin) and Justice Protecting Widows and Orphans (Mauritshaus, The Hague).110 Thenumber of scenes including widows in Metsu’s oeuvre suggests that this unfortunatecondition had special significance for Metsu.111 His own mother was widowed beforeMetsu’s birth, and the artist’s mother-in-law, the painter Maria de Grebber, became awidow when her daughter and Metsu’s future wife, Isabella, was only five years



old.112 In his painting of St Cecilia, Metsu employed the veil to signify the widowedstatus of the saint who has lost her husband and awaits her own death sentence.

Metsu’s interest in blending contemporary features of daily life with tradi-tional religious iconography distinguishes his paintings of Roman Catholicsubject matter. Metsu’s recognition of Roman Catholic pictorial traditions anddoctrinal positions, especially involving the eucharist, and his engagementprofessionally and personally with the Dutch Roman Catholic community,suggests that the unusual work of St Cecilia was painted for someone closelyconnected to the St Cecilia Brotherhood whose members venerated the realpresence of Christ in Amsterdam during the seventeenth century. Moreover, theRoman Catholic martyr, St Cecilia, would have been a familiar religious figure toMetsu who lived with his family next to the Caeciliagasthuis in Leiden during hischildhood and youth. Established in 1600, this city hospital was intended for theindigent sick, including plague victims and the mentally ill, until shortly beforeMetsu’s birth when it became increasingly a place for the infirm elderly. After1636, the Caeciliagasthuis provided education for medical students fromthroughout Europe.113 The contemporary associations of St Cecilia with healing,the care of the poor, and the Eucharist underscore themes that Metsu explored inreligious works, such as his genre depiction of St Cecilia and the Sick Child and hispaintings of the Adoration of the Eucharist, the Crucifixion and Noli Me Tangere. Theseworks from his professional realm alongside his life-long personal connections toRoman Catholicism confirm Gabriel Metsu’s thorough understanding and deepcommitment to the pictorial needs of Dutch Roman Catholics.

Notes

I have previously presented aspects of Metsu’s religious art at the AmericanAssociation of Netherlandic Studies in June 1994 and at the Southeastern CollegeArt Conferences in October 1990 and October 1992. In summer 2005, a UniversityResearch Grant from the University of Montana generously supported myresearch on this topic. Finally, I wish to thank Linda Stone-Ferrier for reading andcommenting on my work regarding Gabriel Metsu.

1 Dutch seventeenth-century nuptials began at thecommission for marriage that forwarded thenames of the Dutch Reformed couples to thechurch in which the banns were read threetimes and the marriage celebrated. For those ofother faiths, such as Roman Catholics, the bannswere announced at the city hall and themarriage was performed by magistrates,‘voor schepenen’. R.B. Evenhuis, Ook dat wasAmsterdam, Amsterdam, 1965, 2 vols, 2:59. Thismarriage was the third for both Jacques Metsuand Jacquemijntge Garniers. Extant documentsshow that Jacques Metsu’s second marriage andGarniers’s fourth marriage were also ‘voor sche-penen’. Schepen ondertrouw- en trouwboek,deel B., folio 179 and deel C., folio 57, OudRechterlijk Archief, inventarisnummer 88 astranscribed by W. Downer and specifically iden-tified by Mr T.N. Schelhaas of the Gemeen-tearchief, Leiden.

2 Adriaan Waiboer, ‘The Early Years of Gabriel

Metsu’, The Burlington Magazine, 147, February

2005, 81 and 83.

3 Waiboer, ‘The Early Years’, 83. For the Roman

Catholicism of Knupfer see Pieter J.J. Van

Thiel, ‘Catholic Elements in Seventeenth-

century Dutch Painting, Apropos of a Chil-

dren’s Portrait by Thomas de Keyser’, Simiolus,

20, 1990/92, footnote 72, 55.

4 Abraham Bredius, ‘Iets over de jeugd van

Gabri€el Metsu’, Oud Holland, 25, 1907, 202; B.J.A.

Renckens and J. Duyvetter, ‘De vrouw van

Gabriel Metsu’, Oud Holland, 74, 1959, 179–82;

and Waiboer, ‘The Early Years’, 83.

5 Metsu and Isabella de Wolff were not married

in the Amsterdam town hall and, instead,

might have contracted their marriage in

another town. Correspondence with Dr W. Chr.

Pieterse, Director of the Gemeentearchief,



Amsterdam, 22 November 1989. Since Metsuand de Wolff had their banns published in thecategory reserved for non-Calvinists, they mayhave intended to have a private Catholicwedding such as that of Jan Vermeer andCatharina Thins. John Michael Montias, Vermeerand His Milieu: A Web of Social History, Princeton,NJ, 1979, 99–101 and 129–32.

6 Roman Catholics were encouraged to marry inthe faith and have a priest consecrate themarriage. F.J.M. Hoppenbrowers, Oefening inVolmaaktheid, De Zeventiende-Eeuwse Roomse-Katho-lieke Spiritualiteit in de Republiek, The Hague, 1996,69–70.

7 James A. Welu and Pieter Biesboer, JudithLeyster: A Dutch Master and her World, New Haven,1993, 228–33.

8 Rene Hazeleger, Pieter Fransz. de Grebber, Schildertot Haerlem, doctoraal-scriptie under the direc-tion of Dr Albert Blankert, Utrecht, 1979, 22. P.Dirkse, ‘Pieter de Grebber: Haarlems schildertussen begijnen, kloppen, en pastoors’, JaarboekHaerlem, 1978, 109–27. See also Renckens andDuyvetter, ‘De vrouw van Gabriel Metsu’, 179.

9 J. Dijkstra, P.P.W.M. Dirkse, and A.E.A.M. Smits,De Schilderijen van Museum Catharijneconvent,Utrecht, 2002, 199–200.

10 Philips, Sara and Maria were the children fromthe first marriage of Metsu’s mother andAbraham Lafoittre. Waiboer, ‘The Early Years’,81.

11 This woman may be related to the RomanCatholic publisher and bookseller, CornelisDircksz. Cool (1614–66). Cool had an art collec-tion, his portrait was painted by Jan Lievens,and Roman Catholic mass was celebrated in hishome. See the 1656 list of ‘paepsche vergader-plaetsen’ #22 ‘noch in de passer boeckver-cooper’. Lienke Paulina Leuven, De Boekhandel teAmsterdam door Katholicken gedreven tijdens deRepubliek, Epe, 1951, 57 and Wim Tepe, OP, XXIVPaepsche Vergaderplaetsen Schuilkerken inAmsterdam, Amstelveen, 1984, 31.

12 A.D. de Vries, ‘Het Testament en Sterfjaar vanGabriel Metsu’, Oud Holland, 1, 1883, 79.

13 According to the church register for 24 October1667, three bells rang during the burial ofGabriel Metsu. De Vries, ‘Het Testament’, 80.After 1655, the number ‘3’, evident in Metsu’sburial record, replaced ‘KKK’ to signify theringing of bells at the Nieuwe Kerk inAmsterdam. For information regarding thesedesignations, see S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘ClaesMoeyaert’, Jaarboek Amstelodamum, 68, 1976, 13–48 and correspondence of 22 November 1989with Dr W. Chr. Pieterse, Director of theGemeentearchief, Amsterdam.

14 Isabella H. van Eeghen, ‘Concurrentie tussen deOude en Nieuwe Kerk bij het Begraven vanRooms-Katholieken’, Amstelodamum, 56, 1969, 126.

15 ‘Een priester van Gabriel Metsu’, as cited inGerard Hoet, Catalogus of Naamlyst van Schil-deryen, met Derzelver Pryzen, s’Gravenhage, 1752–

1770, 3 vols in 2 vols, facsimile reprint edition,Soest, 1976, 1:32; Cornelis Hofstede de Groot,trans. and ed. E.G. Hawke, A Catalogue Raisonneof the works of the most eminent Dutch painters ofthe seventeenth century: based on the work of JohnSmith, 1907; reprint ed., Teaneck, NJ, 1976, 10vols in 3 vols, 1:262; Franklin Robinson, GabrielMetsu (1629–1667): A Study of his Place in DutchGenre Painting of the Golden Age, New York, 1974,41; and Gabriel Metsu, exh. cat., StedelijkMuseum ‘de Lakenhal’, Leiden, 1966, 21.

16 Adolf Worp, Jan Vos, Groningen, 1879, 12 and32. ‘Op d’Afbeelding van den eerwaardigenHeer Simon Klein, door Metsu geschildert’, inAlle de Gedichten van den Po€eet Jan Vos,Amsterdam, 1662, 176.

17 P.C. Molhuysen and K.H. Kossman, NieuwNederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek, Leiden,1911–37, 10 vols, 9:524.

18 See, too, Catharina Hooft with her Nurse, by FransHals. Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, New York, 1989,154–5.

19 Jeroen Giltaij and Peter Hecht, Zinnen enMinnen, Ostfildern-Ruit, 2004, 224 and SaskiaKuus, ‘Children’s Costume in the Sixteenth andSeventeenth Centuries’, in Jan Baptist Bedauxand Rudi Ekkart, eds, Pride and Joy: Children’sPortraits in the Netherlands 1500–1700, Amsterdam,2000, 78.

20 Compare caps in Pieter de Hooch’s painting,Woman Nursing an Infant, c. 1658–60 (The FineArts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco)and Jacob van Loo’s Boy with Top and Dog (Privatecollection) as illustrated in Bedaux and Ekkart,Pride and Joy, 213. See, too, Slive, Frans Hals, 154.

21 John Smith, A Catalogue Raisonne of the Work ofthe Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Pain-ters, London, 1829–42, 8 vols, supplement, 4:73as cited in Giltaij and Hecht, Zinnen en Minnen,222. See also Christopher Brown, Dutch Painting,London, 1993, 20–2 and 60 and Jan Piet FiledtKok, Reinier Baarsen, Bart Corneli, WouterKloek, Frits Scholen, Nederlandse Kunst 1600–1700, Zwolle, 2001.

22 Eddy de Jongh, Tot lering en vermaak; betekenissenvan Hollandse genrevoorstellingen uit de zeventiendeeeuw, Amsterdam, 1976, 171 and Wayne E. Franits,Paragons of Virtue, Women and Domesticity in Seven-teenth-Century Dutch Art, New York, 1993, 124.

23 De Jongh, Tot lering, 170–1.

24 Eddy de Jongh, Portretten van echt en trouw,Huwelijk en gezin in de Nederlandse kunst van dezeventiende eeuw, Haarlem, 1986, 312–15.

25 Leo Steinberg, ‘The Metaphors of Love andBirth in Michelangelo’s Pietas’, in TheodoreBowie and Cornelia V. Christenson, eds, Studiesin Erotic Art, New York, 1970, 231–338.

26 Van Thiel, ‘Catholic Elements’, note 30 and 47;and Bedaux and Ekkart, Pride and Joy, 95–9,182–3, and 289–91.

27 Franklin W. Robinson, Gabriel Metsu, the Letter,San Diego, 1985, 9. See also Peter C. Sutton,



Masters of Seventeenth Century Dutch GenrePainting, Philadelphia, 1984, xliii; ChristopherBrown, Images of a Golden Past: Dutch GenrePainting of the 17th Century, New York, 1984, 47;Brown, Dutch Painting, 20–2 and 60; Franits,Paragons of Virtue, 119; and Waiboer in Giltaijand Hecht, Zinnen en Minnen, 222.

28 Frederick Hartt, Michelangelo, The CompleteSculptor, New York, 1968, 82. See also KathleenWeil-Garris Brandt, ‘Michelangelo’s Pieta forthe Cappella del Re di Francia’, in Il se rendit enItalie: Etudes offertes a Andre Chastel, Rome, 1987,77–120.

29 Alfredo Petrucci, ‘L’Incisione Carraccesca’,Bollettino d’Arte, 35, 1950, note 12, 142 and Dianede Grazia Bohlin, Prints and Related Drawings bythe Carracci Family: A Catalogue Raisonne,Washington, DC, 1979, 82.

30 De Grazia Bohlin, Prints and Related Drawings, 82and Petrucci, ‘L’Incisione Carraccesca’, note 12,142.

31 Clifford S. Ackley, Printmaking in the Age ofRembrandt, Boston, 1981, 12–15. De GraziaBohlin, Prints and Related Drawings, 43–4.

32 Only the print by Master IHS in 1571 reversesMichelangelo’s work to produce a figuralcomposition similar to the pose of the womanand child in Metsu’s Sick Child. Adam Bartsch, LePeintre-Graveur, W .urzburg, new edition, 1920–22, 22 vols, 15:512–13.

33 Weil-Garris Brandt, ‘Michelangelo’s Pieta’, 87.

34 ‘Soo dat den Cardinael van Rouan eenFransman, om van hem gedacht in Room telaten, liet maken Michel Agnolo een grootMary-beeldt van Marber, dat men delle Febbreheet, met eenen dooden Christus op denschoot, welcke naeckt is, so gedaen, datniemant to hopen heeft een beter te sien, vanmusculen, aderen, en senen, op t’ghebeentevan dit lichaem, noch een dooden soo gelijckeenighen dooden, met een soet wesen van eenaensicht, oock aermen en beenen, soo geheelvolcomen schoon, en wel gedaen.’ Karel vanMander, Het Schilder-boek, Haarlem, 1604, 165.

35 According to Robinson and more recently,Waiboer, Metsu was stylistically influenced bythe elder Weenix in the early and mid-1650s.Waiboer, ‘The Early Years’, 87–9.

36 John B. Knipping, Iconography of the Counter Refor-mation in the Netherlands, Nieuwkoop, 1974, 2 vols,2:112.

37 ‘Als sy hem droegh op haere ermen, danstonden voor haer de tween ermen van hetcruys, daer hy met naegels aen gespijckertsoude worden. Al sy hem sach slaepen ophaeren schoot, den scheen sy voor haere oogente sien hoe dat hy afgedaen van ‘t Cruys voorhet lest op haeren schoot soude rusten.’Adriaen Poirters, Het Duyfken in de Steen-Rotse,Antwerp, 1665, 318.

38 Weil-Garris Brandt, ‘Michelangelo’s Pieta’, 91.Barbara G. Lane, The Altar and the Altarpiece,

Sacramental Themes in Early Netherlandish Painting,New York, 1984, 95.

39 Dietmar Spengler, ‘Die ‘‘Ars Jesuitica’’ derGebr .uder Wierix’, Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch, 57,1996, 161–94.

40 Marie Mauquoy-Hendrickx, Les Estampes desWierix, Brussels, 1978, 4 vols, 1:146.

41 Tobias van Domselaer, Beschryvinge van Amsterdam,haar eerste oorspronk uyt den huyze der heeren vanAemstel en Aemstellant, Amsterdam, 1665, 443–4and Noel Biraben, Les Hommes et la Peste en Franceen dans les Pays Europeens et Mediterraneens, Paris,1975–76, 2 vols, 2:420–1, 43.

42 Leo Noordegraaf and Gerrit Valk, De Gave Gods:de pest in Holland vanaf de late middeleeuwen,Bergen, 1988, 69. In her appointment asmidwife in Leiden in 1624, Metsu’s mother,Jacquemijntge Garniers, claimed she had smallchildren who may have died during the plagueyears of either 1624 or 1635. As an adult, Metsuacknowledged only his half-siblings fromGarniers’ first marriage. From the Pieterskerkburial records, W. Downer transcription fromGemeentelijke Archiefdienst te Leiden, 27 August1980 and Waiboer, ‘The Early Years’, 80–1.

43 According to a broadsheet from 1664, as manyas 14,381 people were buried in Leiden in 1635.Most died in the middle part of October, whenmore than 1,400 people perished in one week.De Slaende hant Gods, over de voor-naemste stedenvan ‘t Christenryck; in ‘t besoecken met de pesti-lentiale sieckten, sedert het jaer 1600, tot aen’t jaer1664, Amsterdam, 1664 and Noordegraaf andValk, De Gave Gods, 57.

44 De Slaende hant Gods and Tobias van Domselaer,Beschryvinge van Amsterdam, 444.

45 Tobias van Domselaer, Beschryvinge van Amsterdam,417 and 444.

46 ‘dat de Stadt als in een gheheel Rouwkleetscheen te treuren wegens de algemene droef-heyt die gehoort weirdt’, in Noordegraaf andValk, De Gave Gods, 106.

47 A.D. de Vries, ‘Het Testament’, 79 and De Slaendehant Gods.

48 Noordegraaf and Valk, De Gave Gods, 106.

49 Noordegraaf and Valk, De Gave Gods, 61.

50 R. Krul, ‘Zeven Pestboekjes 1564–1664’, Neder-landsch tijdscrift voor geneeskunde, 29, 1893, 928and Gerrit Valk, ‘Een gesel of een gave Gods, depest in de Republiek’, Skript, 9, 1987, 224–5.

51 Paul Barbette, Pestbeschryving, Amsterdam, 1664, 3.

52 Barbette, Pestbeschryving, 7.

53 Noordegraaf and Valk, De Gave Gods, 26–7.

54 Krul, ‘Zeven Pestboekjes’, 931; Barbette, Pest-beschryving, 9 and 35; and Noordegraaf andValk, De Gave Gods, 188.

55 Joannes de Swaef, De Geestelycke Queeckerye van deJonge Planten des Heeren, 1621. Franits, Paragons ofVirtue, 120.

56 Several publications recur, including works byJohan van Beverwijck (1594–1647), Isbrand van



Diemerbroek (1609–74), and Paul Barbette(1629–99). See Paul Dijstelberge and Leo Noor-degraaf, Plague and Print in the Netherlands: AShort-title Catalogue of Publications in the UniversityLibrary of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, 1997.

57 Ludovicus Makeblijde, Troost der Siecken endeverleden, Antwerp, 1653.

58 ‘Van den Pausgesinder wordt hier seerverheven en heroemt de huylpe en bescher-minghe van de H. Maeght Maria, voor welckersseeckere en vaste bescherminghe wy dickwilslessen, dat dese sieckte dickwils is verdrevenghewees.’ Simon Oomius, Des Heeren VerderflickePyl ofte Two Boeken van de Pest, Amsterdam, 1665,408–9.

59 Roelof Pietersz, Scherm en Schildt der KinderenGodes, 83, 86, and 89.

60 In a sale on 22 April 1709 in Amsterdam, ‘eenknielende jouffrouw voor een Altaer, van G.Metzu’, as recorded in Hoet, Catalogue ofNaamlyst van Schilderyen, 1:131; Theodor vonFrimmel, Kleine Galeriestudien, Die Gr.aflichSchonborn-Buchheim’sche Gem.aldesammlung inWien, Leipzig, 1896, 39–41 and correspondencewith R. Juffinger, Residenzalerie Salzberg,summer 2005.

61 Joost van den Vondel, Altaergeheimenissen,Amsterdam, 1645 and B.H. Molkenboer, OP,Altaergeheimenissen, ontvouwen in drie Boecken,Nijmegen, 1941.

62 Theodore (Dirk) Matham based his Altaergehei-menissen print on a work by Cornelis Galle II(1615–78). F.W.H. Hollstein, Dutch and FlemishEtching Engravings and Woodcuts 1450–1700,Amsterdam, 1949–, 69 vols, 7:65.

63 Verse 50 in title-print poem. J.J. Zeij, S.J., Vondel’sAltaargeheimenissen in dertien lezingen, ‘s-Herto-genbosch, 1924, 2–4.

64 See in particular Reni’s Capuchin Crucifixionfrom 1617–18 popularized by copies andengravings. D. Stephen Pepper, Guido Reni, AComplete Catalogue of his Works with an Intro-ductory Text, New York, 1984, 234–5.

65 ‘The Mass shows you Christ’s death that hesuffered for our great sins. O soul, learn here atGod’s altar everything that God’s son sufferedon Calvary.’ From the Dutch Roman Catholicdevotional text, Mysterie van den godts-dienst,Haarlem, 1676. Valerie Hedquist, ‘The RealPresence of Christ and the Penitent MaryMagdalene in the Allegory of Faith by JohannesVermeer’, Art History, 23, September 2000, 337.

66 Thomas Glen, Rubens and the Counter-Reforma-tion: Studies in his Religious Paintings between 1609and 1620, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1975, 77–8 and JanBialostocki, ‘The Descent from the Cross inWorks by P.P. Rubens and His Studio’, ArtBulletin, December, 1964, 520–2.

67 Marcus S. Sopher with the assistance ofClaudia Lazzaro-Bruno, Seventeenth-CenturyItalian Prints, Stanford, CA, 1978, 15 andStephan Poglayen-Neuwall, ‘Das ‘‘Noli Me

Tangere’’ von Metsu und Barocci’, Zeitschrift f.urBildende Kunst, 60, 1926–27, 206–9.

68 Amsteldams Eer ende opcomen door de denckwaer-dighe miraklen aldaer geschied aen ende door het H.Sacrament des Altaers. Anno 1345, Antwerp, 1639;Isabella H. van Eeghen, ‘De Acta Sanctorum enHet Drukken van Katholieken Boeken teAntwerpen en Amsterdam in de 17th Eeuw’, DeGulden Passer, 31, 1953, 49–58; and H. Molk-enboer and OP , ‘De Bronnen der Alter-geheimenissen’, De Katholiek, 131, 1907, 307–8.

69 P.J. Margry, Amsterdam en het Mirakel van hetHeilig Sacrament, Amsterdam, 1988, 41.

70 Margry, Amsterdam en het Mirakel, 40.



73 Christine Kooi, ‘Paying off the Sheriff: Strate-gies of Catholic Toleration in Golden AgeHolland’, in R. Po-Chia Hsia and Henk vanNierop, eds, Calvinism and Religious Toleration inthe Dutch Golden Age, Cambridge, 2002, 87–101.

74 Linda Stone-Ferrier, ‘Gabriel Metsu’s VegetableMarket at Amsterdam: 17th-century Dutch MarketPaintings and Horticulture’, Art Bulletin, 71, 3,September 1989, 428–52; especially 450–3.

75 As cited in the 1656 list by the ReformedChurch Council ‘op de Prinschengraft in Case-mirus tusschen de Reestraet en de Heerestraet’.At this location ‘is een openbare vergadering,daer oock een paep woont en boven de deurstaet gheschreven paep entrantibus’. IsabellaH. van Eeghen, ‘De Eigendom van de Katho-lieke Kerken in Amsterdam ten tijde van deRepublik’, Haarlemse Bijdragen, 64, 1957, 276.

76 In 1649 the Franciscans opened the Mozes andA.aronkerk in Rembrandt’s neighbourhood,and two years later in 1651 the Boompje in theKalverstraat. Tepe, XXIV Paepsche Vergader-plaetsen, 45–6.

77 Bernard J.M. de Bont, Het H. Cecilia collegie zijndede Broederschap van het Allerheiligste Sacrament teneere van het H. Sacrament van Mirakel vanAmsterdam, Amsterdam, 1895, 7–8.

78 Bont, Het H. Cecilia collegie, 9 and 17–21 andS.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘De rol van de katho-lieke elite bij het ontstaan der staties tot 1715’,in Guus van den Hout and Robert Schillemans,Putti en Cherubijntjes: Het Religieuze Werk van Jacobde Wit (1695–1754), Haarlem, 1995, 38.

79 Bont, Het H. Cecilia collegie, 27 and H.C. de Wolf,Geschiedenis van het R.C. Oude-Armenkantoor teAmsterdam, 1600–1866, Hilversum, 1964, 55.Dudok van Heel, ‘De rol van de katholieke’, 38.

80 Linda Stone Ferrier, ‘Metsu’s Justice ProtectingWidows and Orphans: Patron and Painter Rela-tionships and their Involvement in the Socialand Economic Plight of Widows and Orphansin Leiden’, in Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. and AdeleSeeff, eds, The Public and Private in Dutch Cultureof the Golden Age, Newark, 2000.

81 Ben Broos, Great Dutch Paintings from America,Zwolle, 1990, 334–8.



82 Broos, Great Dutch Paintings from America, 336.

83 P.J.J. van Thiel, ‘Marriage Symbolism in aMusical Party by Jan Miense Molenaer’,Simiolus, 2, 1967-68, 90–9 and Eddy de Jongh,Portretten, 280–4.

84 De Jongh, Portretten, 312–31.

85 Ingvar Bergstrom, ‘Rembrandt’s Double-Portrait of Himself and Saskia’, NederlandsKunsthistorisch Jaarboek, 17, 1966, 143–69 andB.J.A. Renckens and J. Duyvetter, ‘De vrouw vanGabriel Metsu’, 179–82.

86 Louis Reau, Iconographie de l’Art Chretien, 3 vols.,Paris, 1957, 3:279.

87 Alban Butler, Butler’s Lives of the Saints, ed., rev.,and suppl., New York, 1956, 404.

88 Reau, Iconographie de l’Art Chretien, 3:281.

89 Richard E. Spear, Domenichino, New Haven, 1982,194–5 and The Age of Correggio and the Carracci:Emilian Painting of the Sixteenth and SeventeenthCenturies, Washington, DC, 1986, 438.

90 Butler, Butler’s Lives of the Saints, 404. Reau,Iconographie de l’Art Chretien, 3:280–1.

91 More than twelve painted copies and threeearly engravings are noted. The Age of Correggioand the Carracci, 438–40. In his monograph,Richard Spear cited three engravers of Dome-nichino’s St Cecilia: Francois Chauveau (c. 1620–76), Etienne Picart (1632–1721) and EtienneGantrel (1640–after 1705). Charles Le Blanc,Manuel de l’amateur d’estampes 4 vols in 3 vols,Paris, 1854–90; reprint, Amsterdam, 1970,Chauveau, 2:1; Gantrel, 2:267; Picart, 3:196.Picart was active in Rome in from 1655 to 1662and again in 1665.

92 Erik Larsen, The Paintings of Anthony van Dyck, 2vols, Freren, 1988, 2:406.

93 De Jongh, Portretten, 232 and note 11, 235.

94 James Hall, Dictionary of Subjects & Symbols in Art,rev. ed., New York, 1979, 247.

95 Cesare Ripa, Iconologia of Uytbeeldinghe desVerstands, trans. D.P. Pers, Amsterdam, 1644;reprint, Soest, 1971, 484.

96 Hans Vlieghe, Saints, trans. P.S. Falla, 2 vols,Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, pt. 8,New York, 1972, 1:127–9.

97 R .udiger Klessman, ‘Rubens’s Saint Cecilia in theBerlin Gallery after Cleaning’, The BurlingtonMagazine, 107, 1965, 550–9.

98 Vlieghe, Saints, 128.

99 Giltaij and Hecht, Zinnen en Minnen, 213–14.

100 Eddy de Jongh, Still-Life in the Age of Rembrandt,Auckland, New Zealand, 1982, 205.

101 Broos, Great Dutch Paintings from America, 337.

102 ‘Undermeanings in Ovid’s Metamorphoses’, inDon Cameron Allen, Mysteriously Meant: TheRediscovery of Pagan Symbolism and AllegoricalInterpretation in the Renaissance, Baltimore, 1970,163–99.

103 A.W.A. Boschloo, Ovidius Herschapen geıllustreerdeuitgaven van de Metamorphosen in de Nederlandenuit de zestiende, zeventiende en achtiende eeuw, 1980and Anne W. Lowenthal, Joachim Wtewael andDutch Mannerism, 1986, 56.

104 Eric Jan Sluijter, De ‘heydensche fabulen’ in deschilderkunst van de Gouden Eeuw, Schilderijen metverhalende onderwerpen uit de klassieke mythologiein de Noordelijke Nederlanden, circa 1590–1670,Leiden, 2000, 36.

105 Sluijter, De ‘heydensche fabulen’, note 194, 218.

106 Lester K. Born, ‘Ovid and Allegory’, SpeculumJournal of Medieval Studies, 9, 1934, 362–79.

107 Karel van Mander, Wtleggingh op de Metamor-phosis Dordrecht, 1643, 41.

108 In Justus Lipsius, De Cruce, Liber Primus, 1641,12. For the Christianized Ovid of 1671, see DonCameron Allen, Mysteriously Meant, note 114,199. Colette Nativel, ‘Andromede aux rivagesdu Nord’ and Francois Quiviger, ‘Andromede etses commentateurs’, in Andromede ou le heros al’epreuve de la beaute, Paris, 1996, 153 and 324.

109 In the Astronomica, Marcus Manilius wrotethat Andromeda is the victim who is stretchedout on the rocks and bound with chains,‘there to die on her virgin cross the maidenhung’. Book 5, 538–55 in Marcus Manilius,Astronomica, trans. G.P. Gould, Cambridge, MA,1977, 345.

110 Werner Sumowski, Gem.alde der Rembrandt-Sch.uler, 5 vols, Landau, 1983, 1:141 and 192 andFranits, Paragons of Virtue, 164.

111 In his catalogue entry on Metsu’s Pap EatingVrouw (Private Collection), Waiboer noted thehigh number of widows, as many as 13% of allhouseholds in 1622, living in Leiden. Giltaijand Hecht, Zinnen en Minnen, 212.

112 Welu and Biesboer, Judith Leyster, 228–9 andWaiboer, ‘The Early Years’, 80.

113 Tim Huisman, ‘De Lessen van Caecilia’, inTheater van Leven en Dood, Gezondheid en ziekte inde Gouden Eeuw, Leiden, 2003, 7–9.



DUTCH GENRE PAINTING AS RELIGIOUS ART: GABRIEL METSU'S ROMAN CATHOLIC IMAGERY

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