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- Gabriel Metsu (1629 - 1667)
- An Old Woman Asleep
- Netherlands
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- Date: 1657 - c.1662
- Object Type: Painting
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Image size: 37.5 x 33 cm
- Inv: P242
- Location: East Galleries II
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- Description
- Provenance
- Marks/Inscriptions
- Further Reading
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- This painting belongs to a tradition of visual representations of the sin of sloth. Here, an old woman has fallen asleep while reading the Bible. The threat such negligence poses is embodied by the cat, who greedily eyes a plate of fish. After the Jeremiah Harman sale of 1844, the 4th Marquess of Hertford complained to his friend Colonel Gurwood: ‘How sorry I am that you did not let me know that Mr Harman’s pictures were to be sold at Christie’s – you are sure to have known it – they are magnificent beyond expression, and it would have delighted me to have bought a few’. Fortunately, he had to wait only another four years before the present picture appeared again on the market.