Two Men with a Sleeping Woman

Artist: Gabriel Metsu (Dutch, 1629 - 1667)

Original Dimensions: 14 5/8" x 12 3/4"

Location: National Gallery of Art, London

About Artwork: (About 1655-60) "The objects on the table – an innkeeper’s slate, playing cards, a pipe, a silver cup, a tankard and a backgammon box – imply that this is a tavern. The sleeping woman might be the innkeeper’s wife, a barmaid or, possibly, a prostitute, and the painting is drawing attention to her vices. Cards and backgammon were used for gambling, not a respectable activity for a woman. More seriously, she has been smoking and has fallen asleep drunk. The leering men are clearly amused: one seems to use the stem of his pipe to draw open the front of her dress while his friend laughs. To the modern eye this is harassment, but in seventeenth-century Amsterdam attitudes differed. Female drunkenness was disapproved of in polite society and tobacco, considered an aphrodisiac, was seen as a threat to a woman’s virtue. But the Dutch also saw a funny side to lax moral behaviour, and paintings mocking such failings became popular." - (National Gallery of Art, London)