The Hunter’s Present

To a Dutch buyer around 1660, a man offering a woman a bird was making a joke everyone understood. Going birding was common slang for making love, and Metsu makes sure nobody misses it. A small white statuette of Cupid, the god of love, stands on top of the cupboard behind the pair. The hunter leans in and holds out the bird, his spaniel at his knee, his gun and a dead duck lying on the floorboards. She keeps her needlework in her lap and looks at the bird, weighing the offer, while her other hand stretches toward the table, where the Rijksmuseum sees a prayer book. Metsu leaves her choice open. The picture belonged to the Amsterdam banker Adriaan van der Hoop, who left his collection to the city, and it hangs in the Rijksmuseum on loan from Amsterdam.