David Teniers the Younger (Antwerp 1610-Brussels 1690) Royal Collection
Military subjects were popular on either
side of the frontier during the Eighty Years War (1568-1648). The most
common image of the soldier’s life was the guard-room scene, a glamorous
version of the tavern scene, where soldiers smoke, drink and play
cards. This painting may have been executed for Teniers’s master, the
Archduke Leopold William, who was commander-in-chief of the Spanish army
in Flanders. It is rare in depicting the camp rather than the
guard-room, but tries to convey the same aimless boredom of military
life. Almost all military scenes provide an excuse for the artist to
depict a still life of as many different weapons as possible; the glint
of light off steel is rendered especially effectively here on this
painting executed on the reflective medium of copper.
Flemish artists like Jan Brueghel had made a speciality of depicting
allegorical figures surrounded by the attributes or results of the thing
they personify: the element of Fire, for example, might be surrounded
by a huge pile of metal objects which had been created in the heat of a
forge. The same convention is employed here and in the Old Woman peeling
Turnips (Royal Collection); she could be an allegory of hearth and home
balanced by a pile of vegetables; the drummer here could be an allegory
of war matched by a pile of armour.
Signed and dated lower left: D. TENIERS.F.1647
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