Gabriel Metsu -The Hunter's Present
Oil on canvas
51 x 48 cm
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
In a richly-furnished room a man is handing a woman a partridge. The painting is known as the 'Hunter's Present'. It is not quite as innocent a gift as might at appear. In seventeenth-century Dutch parlance the word 'vogel' (meaning 'bird') also referred to the male genitals. So to offer a woman a bird was to suggest quite a different activity. The expression 'to go hunting' and the fact that the woman is busy 'sewing' (she is holding a piece of embroidery) are equally ambiguous terms in Dutch. Also, the small Cupid on the cupboard together with the slippers which have been taken off, the feathered hat, the gun and the dogs, are all references in this context to love and lust. Thissymbolism would have been immediately understood by Metsu's contemporaries.
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