Support The panel consists of two vertically grained oak planks (approx. 24.3 and 20.9 cm), approx. 1 cm thick. The reverse is bevelled on all sides and has regularly spaced saw marks. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1631. The panel could have been ready for use by 1642, but a date in or after 1648 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The double ground extends up to the edges of the support. The first, slightly translucent cream-coloured layer is followed by a thin, light brown layer consisting of white pigment with a small addition of earth pigments.
Underdrawing Infrared photography and infrared reflectography revealed an elaborate, freely applied underdrawing in what appears to be a dry medium. It delineates most elements of the composition, even up to the individual folds of the clothing. Only a few elements, such as the officer’s hat and coat, were apparently not included in the underdrawing but added later. Some broad hatching was used to mark the shadowed areas along the bottom edge and to the right of the officer. The position of his pipe was altered several times in this stage. The underdrawing was not precisely followed in the painting process. Apart from numerous small deviations in the contours, several adjustments could be detected. In the underdrawing, the officer’s face was tilted further upwards and to the left (almost seen in profile) and his right boot was broader. The position of the boy’s left foot was drawn in a more horizontal pose, the right arm of the woman in the background was originally planned higher up, and the clothes in the lower left corner as well as the garment draped over the wooden partition were placed differently.
Paint layers The paint extends over the edges of the support. The composition was built up from the back to the front, leaving the elements further forward in reserve. A translucent brown, first lay-in of the composition shows through the thinly applied paint layers of the background. Most of the dark interior is in shades of brown. Colours were added only in the central area with figures and attributes, but even then in a limited palette and with rather transparent, thin paint. Definition was given to the composition with small touches of paint, such as the boy’s exposed knee, which was created with a small efficient brushstroke placed over the finished trousers. Lastly, small touches of paint and highlights were used to enhance modelling, followed by the pale straw scattered around.
Michel van de Laar, Ige Verslype, 2024

Good. There are some retouchings and damaged areas along the join. The thick varnish is irregular and has yellowed, showing a distinct crack pattern.

…; ? sale, Jacob Snels (1683-1762, Gouda) and Baron van Deneke, The Hague (A. Franken), 11 July 1763, no. 84, as Maerten Stoop (‘Een Officier de Laarsen uytgetrokken, wordende, met verder Bywerk, door M. Stoop’), fl. 11;¹¹Copy RKD.…; ? first recorded in the collection of Cornelis Hoogendijk (1866-1911), The Hague, 1899;²²Catalogus van schilderijen van Oud-Hollandsche meesters: Collectie C. Hoogendijk, exh. cat. The Hague (Pulchri Studio) 1899, p. 10, no. 72; H. Henkels, ‘Cézanne en Van Gogh in het Rijksmuseum voor Moderne Kunst in Amsterdam: De collectie van Cornelis Hoogendijk (1866-1911)’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 41 (1993), pp. 155-287, esp. p. 168. from whom on loan to the museum, 1907-11;³³Verslagen omtrent ’s Rijks verzamelingen van geschiedenis en kunst 1907 (annual report of the Rijksmuseum), p. 32, SK-C-883. donated from his estate to the museum, May 1912

Object number: SK-A-2573

Credit line: Gift of the heirs of C. Hoogendijk, The Hague

This unsigned panel is probably identical with a work sold in The Hague in 1763 that came from the collection of either Jacob Snels, a local government official in Gouda, or Baron van Deneke.⁵⁵See Provenance. It was already considered to be from Maerten Stoop’s hand then, and no doubt has been cast on that since.⁶⁶It was wrongly stated as painted by his brother Dirk in P. Terwesten, Catalogus of naamlyst van schilderyen, met derzelver prysen, zedert den 22. Augusti 1752, tot den 21. November 1768, zo in Holland, als Braband en andere Plaatzen in het openbaar Verkogt: Dienende tot een vervolg of Derde Deel op de Twee Deelen der uitgegeeve Cataloguen door wylen de Heer Gerard Hoet; Zynde hier agter gevoegt: Catalogus van een gedeelte van ’t vorstelyk Kabinet Schilderyen van Zyne Doorl. Hoogheid, den Heere Prince van Orange en Nassau, Erfstadhouder, Capitain-Generaal en Admiraal der Verëenigde Nederlanden, &c. &c. &c., The Hague 1770, p. 342, no. 85. Comparison with his only signed and dated picture, Soldier and a Girl at a Game of Cards of 1644.⁷⁷Present whereabouts unknown; illustrated in 28 Old Master Paintings at Surinamestraat 28, dealer cat. The Hague (Hoogsteder Fine Arts) 1989, no. 24. confirms that the attribution is correct. There are similarities in the thin application of paint, with a preference for brown tones with colourful touches here and there in the protagonists. Both works display the same skilful rendering of textures, variations in the lively poses of the figures, a penchant for foreshortened bodies, and the design of the still-life elements on the right. Stoop prepared the Rijksmuseum composition with a detailed underdrawing which was the basis for the scene, although he did depart from it occasionally.⁸⁸See Technical notes. Stoop’s Seven Works of Mercy in Kassel was similarly prepared. Oral communication, Gregor Weber, 2009. Illustrated in B. Schnackenburg, Gesamtkatalog Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister Kassel, coll. cat. Kassel 1996, II, fig. 152, no. GK 210. Infrared images show that his initial idea was to have the officer look to his right, setting up more of an interaction with the woman in the background. The painting is undated, but the dendrochronology shows that the support was possibly ready for use by 1642. Since Stoop died in 1647, the picture could be from the last year of his life. There is a copy after it by an unknown artist.⁹⁹Present whereabouts unknown; illustrated in the catalogue for the sale, Vienna (Dorotheum), 4 (5) November 1992 sqq., no. 333.

An officer whose spurs are being attached to his boots by a servant is a recurring element in works by guardroom painters such as Anthonie Palamedesz, Pieter Quast and Jacob Duck. It has been interpreted as a reference to the authority and social position of officers, for the motif gave them a certain status.¹⁰¹⁰J. Rosen, Jacob Duck and the ‘Guardroom’ Painters: Minor Masters as Inventors in Dutch 17th Century Genre Painting, diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 2003, p. 207. However, the one in Stoop’s scene is shown in his shirt and is leaning against a bed, while holding a pipe in his left hand.¹¹¹¹Waiboer considers it to be a self-portrait, but without argumentation; see A.E. Waiboer, ‘Gabriel Metsu’s Life, Work and Reputation’, in A.E. Waiboer (ed.), Gabriel Metsu, exh. cat. Dublin (National Gallery of Ireland)/Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Washington (National Gallery of Art) 2010-11, pp. 1-27, esp. p. 6; Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu: Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven/London 2012, p. 31. Smoking was associated with military men, but people were ambivalent about it and it was not considered acceptable social behaviour until well into the seventeenth century.¹²¹²I. Gaskell, ‘Tobacco, Social Deviance, and Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century’, in W.E. Franits, Looking at Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art: Realism Reconsidered, Cambridge 1987, pp. 68-77; E. de Jongh, ‘Vluchtige rook vereeuwigd: Betekenissen van tabaksgebruik in zeventiende-eeuwse voorstellingen’, in B. Tempel (ed.), Rookgordijnen: Roken in de kunsten: Van olieverf tot celluloid, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Kunsthal) 2003-04, pp. 85-126. There is another scene of a smoking officer by Stoop, present whereabouts unknown; photo RKD. Several genre painters used smoking or handling a pipe as a sly allusion to sexual acts,¹³¹³E. de Jongh, ‘Vluchtige rook vereeuwigd: Betekenissen van tabaksgebruik in zeventiende-eeuwse voorstellingen’, in B. Tempel (ed.), Rookgordijnen: Roken in de kunsten: Van olieverf tot celluloid, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Kunsthal) 2003-04, pp. 85-126, esp. pp. 111-16. and it probably has that connotation here as well. The female figure in the background would then be a prostitute or a brothel-keeper who is collecting her fee for services rendered from a chest with war booty. Women of easy virtue who could be seduced with the spoils of war are also found in the work of Stoop’s fellow townsman Jacob Duck.¹⁴¹⁴For example, Dividing the Spoils, present whereabouts unknown; illustrated in N. Salomon, Jacob Duck and the Gentrification of Dutch Genre Painting, Doornspijk 1998, pl. VIII.

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2024

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

R. Bangel, ‘Die Sammlung Hoogendijk im Rijksmuseum’, Der Cicerone 7 (1915), pp. 171-89, esp. pp. 182-84; P.T.A. Swillens, ‘De Utrechtsche Schilders Dirck en Maerten Stoop’, Oud Holland 51 (1934), pp. 116-35 and pp. 174-81, esp. pp. 176-77; A.E. Waiboer, ‘Gabriel Metsu’s Life, Work and Reputation’, in A.E. Waiboer (ed.), Gabriel Metsu, exh. cat. Dublin (National Gallery of Ireland)/Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Washington (National Gallery of Art) 2010-11, pp. 1-27, esp. p. 6; A.E. Waiboer, Gabriel Metsu: Life and Work: A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven/London 2012, p. 31

1911, p. 353, no. 2261b; 1934, p. 272, no. 2261b; 1976, p. 527, no. A 2573

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2024, 'Maerten Stoop, An Officer in Billeted Quarters, c. 1647', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20026368