Gabriel Metsu (1629-1667): A Study of His Place in Dutch Genre Painting of the Golden Age

New York: Abner Schram, 1974. 1st. Hardcover. Very Good. 11.3x8.8x1.1in. split in cloth in rear gutter, ownership cipher and number on front pastedown, lacking dust jacket.
Gabriel Metsu's numerous works -- there are more than one hundred and fifty extant paintings -- have an unusual charm and immediacy, ranging over a wide variety of subjects: not only genre scenes, illustrating tavern and peasant life as well as more familiar bourgeois views of the boudoir and living room, but also religious scenes, still-lifes, and, occasionally, portraits. These paintings are characterized by a direct, sometimes almost naive delight in a world of bedrooms and taverns and nurseries; his love of depicting everyday people in everyday roles, housewives and hunters, drinkers, smokers, and prostitutes, is equaled by a sheer delight in color -- particularly the juxtaposition of red and green -- and the qualities of paint itself, with sparkling highlights touched on the surface of an object or, sometimes, short hooks dug into the wet paint by the butt end of the brush. Illustrated with 240 black and white plates.
240pp 2.73lb 11.3x8.8x1.1in