Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Portrait of a man, full-length, handing a letter to a boy, in an interior (The Young Messenger)
Attributed to Gonzales Coques Flemish
Not on view
This intriguing panel, part portrait and part genre painting, was possibly painted by Coques, who specialized in small-scale, finely worked portraits and family groups. Its unfinished state gives us a glimpse into a practice that may have been shared by other Dutch artists in which the artist painted the heads and objects in a room—here the closely observed velvet-covered armchair and the implements related to the task of writing—while leaving the men’s clothing at the level of underdrawing. Perhaps at this point a studio assistant would have taken up the painting.
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