The device of a single figure presented through an illusionistic stone window frame is one which Metsu has learned from his teacher, Gerrit Dou (compare, for example, CW 43, 404621; CW 44, 404803 and CW 45, 404618). In this case, however, the artist presents himself. He does so very explicitly as an intellectual painter in the mainstream Italianate tradition, rather than as a Dutch craftsman. He is richly dressed to suggest that painting is a 'Liberal Art', appropriate for gentlemen rather than labourers. He holds a piece of chalk rather than a brush: drawing was regarded as the 'thinking' part of art, painting the manual, reiterating the same socio-intellectual point. He displays examples of art which have inspired him: a sculpted head of a Muse or some such Classical figure and a print after Gerard Seghers's 'Christ at the Column'. These are both works of art with elevated subjects, not merely representations of everyday reality; they are Flemish and somewhat in the style of Sir Peter Paul Rubens - the most ambitious and Italianate artist from the Low Countries during the seventeenth century. They have little to do with the work Metsu himself actually painted, but they suggest that his aspirations were as high as any.

In his left hand (perhaps significantly) Metsu holds the tools of the lower part of his trade: brushes, mahlstick (a thing which helps you hold your hand still when painting) and pliers to remove tacks when re-stretching canvases. He is also surrounded by a jug and pot for oils, a further brush, a box to contain colours and a shell for mixing them.

Signed lower right: 'G. Metsu.'