Every detail has a perfection of finish that is never finical or at the expense of the unity of the whole. The hands and heads have a special distinction of fluent modeling and of exquisite expression. These qualities, combined with richness of local color, characterize the pictures of the sixties, as may be seen in the examples in the National Gallery, the Wallace Collection, and the galleries of Dresden, Amsterdam, and The Hague. Toward the end of this ten years of highest production Metsu’s pictures grow stiffer in composition, colder in color, and harder in their surfaces. The beginning of this change is noticeable in the portrait group of _The Family Geelvink_, in the Berlin Gallery, and characterizes also some of his latest genre subjects. Probably the cause was failing health, for toward the end of his life he suffered from the effects of a bungled operation. PIETER DE HOOCH PIETER DE HOOCH, the son of a butcher, was born in Rotterdam in 1630, being therefore the same age as Metsu and two years older than Maes and Vermeer. With these last two he has been ranked by some critics, who consider that the trio represents the high-water mark of Holland genre. With Maes’s claim to this distinction one has ventured to disagree, and may also dispute De Hooch’s for somewhat the same reason. The latter’s best period was confined to ten years, 1655-1665, and outside of that, especially toward the end of his life, he did some quite indifferent work. Houbraken makes the statement that his teacher was Nicolaes Berchem. It is accepted as a fact, the presumption being that Berchem at the time was living in Amsterdam, in which case De Hooch would have become acquainted with Rembrandt’s style. That it did not affect him, immediately at any rate, is evident from his early work, which represents lively scenes of soldiers and young girls, painted rather in the manner of Dirck Hals or Duyster. It is possible, however, that even thus early the Rembrandt influence may have been operating upon him, as upon so many of the painters in Amsterdam at that time, by drawing his attention to problems of light, which eventually became the characteristic of his art.