ANTHONIE PALAMEDESZ.
Delft 1601 - 1673 Amsterdam
A Guardroom Interior with an Officer and His Men, a Mother & Child
Oil on Panel
14 ¾ x 19 ½ in (37.5 x 49.7 cm)
Signed lower left
Provenance
With Bohler, Lucerne, 1949;
Private collection Germany.
Soldiers and their camp followers appear in a cavernous interior. The call to arms has sounded, the hours of waiting are finally over and the company prepares to muster. In the foreground stands an officer resplendent in white, embellished with ribbons and lace, and wearing a blue satin sash and plumed hat. He glances over his shoulder at the rowdy crew behind him and the standard-bearer, who holds a blue ensign. To his right, a halberdier gestures to the drummer to take up his instrument and sally forth. Close by, a soldier sits on an upturned basket and pulls on his boots, while another dons his hat and starts to move off. Seated in the left-hand corner is a young woman, accompanied by a small child. Richly dressed in lace and satin, with a branch of cherries in one hand, she directs a somewhat startled gaze towards the viewer.
Anthonie Palamedesz. was a genre, portrait and still-life painter. He is best remembered for his paintings of merry or musical companies and guardroom scenes. His earliest dated paintings are from 1632 and depict the former, but he probably began his activity as a genre painter considerably earlier, since all these works attest to the accomplished efforts of a mature master. Palamedesz., however, does not seem to have taken up soldiering themes until rather later in his career. The earliest dated example is a painting of Soldiers in a guardroom of 1647 in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (i) and, judging from the few dated works and the figures’ costumes, he was still producing guardroom interiors as late as 1665.
Military life was a topical theme in the Dutch Republic in the first half of the seventeenth-century, especially after 1621 when the Twelve-Year Truce with Spain expired and hostilities were renewed. Although much of the actual fighting in these years was confined to the southern border and the eastern provinces, all of Holland’s major cities housed garrisons of troops. Indeed, soldiers were a constant feature of life and their activities provided a rich source of subject-matter for genre painters. Yet, whereas Flemish painters favoured battles and cavalry skirmishes, the Dutch more often depicted off-duty soldiers in their wachtkamern, or guardrooms. In Dutch contemporary literature soldiers were often represented as comic figures, with the common footsoldier portrayed as a drunken lout and the officer as a vane fop.
Genre paintings of soldiers at their leisure came into vogue in the 1620s and remained popular until the end of the century. In the seventeenth century, this category of painting was known as the cortegaerdje, a corruption of the French term, corps de garde. The principal exponents in this field were Pieter Codde, Willem Duyster and Simon Kick in Amsterdam, Jacob Duck in Utrecht and Anthonie Palamedesz. and Jacob van Velsen in Delft. Scores of paintings depict soldiers in taverns, stables or tents, often attended by tavern hostesses, prostitutes or camp followers. Some show figures fighting over plunder, perusing their booty or taking hostages, while others portray the quieter side of military life, with men merely smoking, drinking or playing a game of cards or trictrac.
The present painting is a characteristic example of Palamedesz.’s interpretation of this theme. The many lively figures are presented in a shadowy, stage-like setting, with the principal characters spot-lit towards the front of the composition. The extravagantly dressed officer, the young woman with her child - perhaps the officer’s moll - and the motif of the drum are all part of the artist’s stock-in-trade and crop up frequently elsewhere in his oeuvre. Typical, too, is the loose, painterly technique and the palette of greys, browns and blacks, with accents of brighter colour reserved for the main protagonists.
BIOGRAPHY OF ANTHONIE PALAMEDESZ.
Delft 1601 – 1673 Amsterdam
Anthonie Palamedesz. was born in Delft in 1601, the son of a gemcutter. Soon after his birth, his father was recorded in the service of James I of England and his brother, the battle painter Palamedes Palamedesz. (1607-1638), may have been born in London. Anthonie probably studied in Delft with the Court portrait painter Michiel van Mierevelt and the genre painter Hendrick Pot, who was in the city in 1620. The young artist became a member of the Delft Guild of St. Luke in 1621 and served as headman in 1635, 1658, 1663 and 1672. In 1630, he married Anna Joosten van Hoorendijk, with whom he had six children: his son, Palamedes Palamedesz. the Younger (1632-1705) became a painter. The couple must have been quite well off, for in 1638 Anthonie bought a house for the considerable sum of 3,400 guilders. It appears, however, that by 1668 the artist’s financial situation had changed, since he was granted an “extraordinary subsidy” of 25 guilders and 9 stuivers on 29 December from the City of Delft. In 1658, seven years after the death of his first wife, the artist married Aagje Woedewart, with whom he had a son, Arthur, born in 1660. By 1673, Anthonie was living in Amsterdam, where he died on 27 November.
His pupils included not only his brother, Palamedes, and his son of the same name, but also the Rotterdam portrait and genre painter, Ludolf de Jongh. His closest follower was the Delft painter Jacob van Velsen.
P.M.
(i) Anthonie Palamedesz., Soldiers in a guardroom, signed and dated 1647, on panel, 38 x 52 cm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. A3024.