"Crucifixion"

Gabriël Metsu (1629–1667) was a Dutch painter of history paintings, still lifes, portraits, and genre works. He was a highly eclectic artist, who did not adhere to a consistent style, technique, or one type of subject for long periods. Only 14 of his 133 works are dated.

Strong links with the work of the Utrecht painter Nicolaus Knüpfer (c. 1603–1655), suggest that Metsu apprenticed with this master in the early 1650s. Also influential for Metsu’s early work was another master from Utrecht, the Italianate landscape painter Jan Baptist Weenix (1621–1660/1661).

Metsu’s stylistic and thematic adaptability suggests that he understood the changing character of the art market. For example, after he moved to Amsterdam he began to paint genre scenes that featured upper-class domestic situations. He also began to paint with greater detail and with a refinement associated with Leiden masters. In Amsterdam he also responded to the thematic and stylistic innovations of Johannes Vermeer (Dutch, 1632 - 1675), Gerard ter Borch the Younger (Dutch, 1617 - 1681), and Pieter de Hooch (Dutch, 1629 - 1684).

Metsu’s facile brushwork and his engaging narrative scenes were highly regarded during his own time, but the height of his fame came in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when he was viewed as one of the supreme Dutch masters of the seventeenth century.