Intussen, in het leven van Gabriël Metsu
Het hele leven1657–1667 · Werkzaam in
Amsterdam
27 april 1658
Married: Isabella de Wolff
early 1660s
Turns to the Leiden “fijnschilders”
At the onset of the 1660s he turned for inspiration to the art of the Leiden “fijnschilders” (“fine painters”), whose origin is traced to Dou: their paintings on wood or copper are marked by exceptional rendering of minute detail and a smooth, glowing surface. He was apparently responding to the market for Dou’s paintings, which Dou sold at exorbitant prices.
c. 1661
Wins the patronage of the cloth merchant Jan Hinlopen
He won the patronage of the Amsterdam cloth merchant Jan J. Hinlopen, one of his most important patrons, and painted his family more than once in a fashionable setting. Such works include the “Portrait of the Hinlopen Family” (Berlin) and “Visit to the Nursery” (Metropolitan Museum).
1662
Jan Vos’s poem on “Visit to the Nursery”
Jan Vos published a poem about this painting, which belonged to Jan Hinlopen: the scene is set in an imaginary room of unrealistically large proportions, and hung in the reception room of Hinlopen’s house it alluded to his powerful role in local politics.
