Gabriel METSU (Leyde 1629 - Amsterdam1667) Lot n° 182

The parable of the prodigal son Oak panel with two boards, not parqueted Frame : carved and gilded wood Louis XIV period Height : 55 cm Width : 42.5 cm - probably Jan de Kommer sale, Amsterdam, April 15, 1767, n°69 - probably Jan Tersteeg, Amsterdam, 13-14 June 1808, n°98 (sold for 46 florins to the painter Egbert van Drielst) - collection P Sandry (?) in 1947 (estimated 650 000 old francs by the gallery De Boer) - sale in Paris, Palais Galliera, 22 June 1965, n°61, as attributed to Gabriel Metsu (4800 new francs) - Pierre Flipo Masurel, industrialist in the North of France, then to his descendants. Signed lower center Bibliography: Adriaan E. Waiboer, "Gabriel Metsu: life and work: a catalog raisonné," New Haven, Yale University Press, 2012, pp. 15-16 (repr.) and p. 166, cat. no. A-4. This panel is a work from Gabriel Metsu's youth, dated 1650/52, when the artist was still strongly influenced by the style and manner of his master Nicolaus Knüpfer. However, we already notice a sense of precise detail (in the rendering of satins, feathers and still life on the table) that he will push to perfection under the influence of Gerard Dou and Frans I van Mieris, making him one of the most representative painters of the "fijnschilder" leydoise. Another representation of this subject, taken from the parable of the prodigal son, in a brothel (oil on canvas, 72x65 cm, St Petersburg, Hermitage Museum), but in a very different composition, is known from the same date. We are grateful to Professor Adriaan E. Waiboer for confirming the authenticity of this painting by on October 14, 2022. Visible at the Turquin cabinet, 69 Rue Sainte-Anne, 75002 Paris.