THE REPUTATION OF Gabriel Metsu (1629–67) is almost exclusively based on the finely painted genre scenes that the artist produced during his mature years in Amsterdam (Fig.1). But, like his contemporaries Johannes Vermeer, Paulus Potter, Emanuel de Witte and several other Dutch painters who are primarily known for their genre scenes, still lifes or landscapes, Metsu began as a history painter (Fig.2). Had he not signed his early, mostly biblical paintings, they would probably have remained unidentified, since they are quite distinct from his later work in their style, brushwork and figure types. Metsu produced such paintings between the end of the 1640s and c.1654, during which time he is known to have been living in Leiden. This article attempts to reconstruct Metsu’s early career and, in the course of charting his initial development, to answer such questions as: who were Metsu’s teachers? By whom was he influenced? Why and at what point did he move to Amsterdam? Why did he eventually specialise in genre painting?

CHARLES-ALEXANDRE, Duke of Lorraine (1712–80; Fig.17), served as Governor-General of the Austrian Netherlands from 1744 until his death, representing his sister-in-law, the Empress Maria Theresia. In 1749, at the end of the War of the Austrian Succession, he took up residence in Brussels and established himself at the old Court of Nassau. From the 1750s, the prince was continually engaged in rebuilding and furnishing this medieval palace. When in 1761 his position and income were considerably augmented through his election as Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, the pace of his commissions accelerated accordingly. His principal architects were Jean Faulte (1726–66) and, on Faulte’s death, Laurent-Benoît Dewez (1731–1812). Today, only the chapel and one wing of Charles’s palace, containing the main staircase and two lesser suites of rooms, survive.

DURING THE SUMMER of 1912, Emil Nolde completed four paintings on the theme of an obscure Christian saint, Mary of Egypt, who worked the port of Alexandria as a prostitute, experienced a conversion to Christianity at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and died a hermit in the wilderness beyond the river Jordan. In one sense, Nolde’s choice of religious subject-matter represented continuity. In the summer of 1909, with just such Christian subjects, he had made his first decisive steps away from an early impressionistic mode towards a dramatic, painterly and colouristic style. Each summer since then, when staying in rural northern Germany, he had produced a handful of religious paintings. But, in another sense, it marked a significant change, for although he had already painted twenty-one works on biblical themes, Nolde for the first time chose a subject not from scripture but from Christian legend. The last three of the four canvases of this theme have always been hung as a unit – approximating a triptych – and remain together today in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg (the fourth is in the Museum Folkwang, Essen). Collectively Nolde called them Legend: St Mary of Egypt and titled them individually In the port of Alexandria (left; Fig.31), The conversion (centre; Fig.32) and Death in the desert (right; Fig.33). In his memoirs, he described them briefly as ‘Mary among the rough seamen; Mary on her knees, in turmoil, praying to the mother of God; St Mary sought, found and buried by a prior’.

A SMALL, WELL-PRESERVED oil-sketch on panel, a portrait of a man (Fig.44), can now be identified as a self-portrait by the Antwerp painter Gerard Seghers (1591–1651). The panel was first published in 1961 as of an unknown sitter by an unknown artist. Its direct relation to an engraving of Seghers, made after the self-portrait sketch, by Pieter II de Jode (Fig.45) had not then been made. The dimensions of the panel are identical to the engraving and it was obviously made as a guide for De Jode, who closely followed its disposition of light and shade. This procedure is familiar from the engravings after Van Dyck’s series of portraits of illustrious people, known as the Iconographie. Although the palette of brownish ochres used for the background and for the painter’s hair and the olive green of his clothes is consistent with Seghers’s work, the vigorous handling is clearly distinct from his usually more meticulous manner. Because it is a rapidly executed small sketch to be used for a print, it is not surprising to find the brushstrokes clearly visible, particularly in the contours of the head and in the depiction of the hand and face.