Metzu, Gabriel

, a Dutch painter of small portraits, was born at Leyden in 1615. His master is not known, but he studiously imitated Gerard Dow, and Mieris. The beauty of his colouring is particularly esteemed, and he finished his paintings with great labour. His subjects were usually taken from low life, but they were all designed after nature, and represented with astonishing skill; such as women selling fish, fowls, or game; sick persons attended by the physician; chemists in their laboratories; painters rooms, shops, and drawing-schools, hung with prints and pictures; all which he finished with extraordinary neatness. They are not scarce in this country, although highly valued. By confining himself so closely to a sedentary life, he became violently afflicted with the stone. He submitted to the operation of cutting for it, but had not strength of constitution to survive the operation, and died in 1658, at the age of forty-three. ²