Metsu, whose work is at first sight not easily distinguishable from Terborch’s, acquired a facility in the control of the expression and the ever-varying gesture of the hands in his pictures, that was denied to many of his contemporaries. Instances of this are the figure of the Christ writing a long Latin inscription on the ground in the _Woman taken in Adultery_ (No. 2457), the ease with which the young lady in a white satin dress runs her fingers over the keys of the spinet in the _Music Lesson_ (No. 2460), and the treatment of the _Dutch Lady_ (No. 2462), who holds a jug in her right hand. The last-named panel is evidently the companion to the very thinly painted _Dutch Cook peeling Apples_ (No. 2463), which is signed “G. METSU.” Perhaps his best outdoor scene of humble life is the _Vegetable Market at Amsterdam_ (No. 2458), although his handling of the trees suggests that his forte was the Conversation-piece of Dutch tradition, and that he would not have risen to high rank as a landscape painter. The placing of the signature on a letter, which in this instance lies on the ground, is a favourite device with Metsu. He has derived much pleasure from the treatment of the textures of the tablecloth, the curtain, and the chair in the _Officer visiting a Lady_ (No. 2459). The _Alchemist_ (No. 2461) may be the companion picture to the _Sportsman_ in the Gallery at The Hague. Much speculative criticism has been indulged in by critics as to whether the so-called _Portrait of Admiral Cornelis Tromp_ (No. 2464) represents that admiral, and some doubt has also been cast on its attribution to Metsu. LANDSCAPE PAINTERS The naturalistic treatment of the landscape background in the religious pictures of Jan van Eyck and his successors, Memlinc, Bouts, Hugo van der Goes, and other painters in the Netherlands, in time brought about the promotion of landscape painting to an independent art. Among the earlier Dutch artists who approached the study of Nature were Arent Arentzen (1586?-1635?), as we see from his _Landscape with a Fisherman_ (No. 2300A), and Roeland Roghman, who was born a year later than Jan van Goyen, and lived as late as 1685. He painted the _Landscape_ (No. 2555B), which was formerly in the Paul Mantz collection. Indeed, several Dutchmen of the period sought to commit to panel views of nature, as in the case of Pieter de Bloot (1600-1652), who gives us a _Landscape with a River_ (No. 2327B).