Soldiers in a Guardroom

The support is an oak panel, made of a single, horizontally grained plank bevelled on all sides. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1620. The panel could have been ready for use by 1631, but a date in or after 1637 is more likely. The paint layers were applied rather thickly over a ground that is probably of a light colour. The figures on the second plane were painted over the dark background. Losses reveal that the jacket worn by the central figure was originally blue before being overpainted in yellow. A minor pentimento is visible in the head of the man behind the drum in the lower right corner.

Fair. A few losses appear in the jacket of the central figure. The thick varnish layer has discoloured and is matte in some areas.

...; sale, Freek Dirks Fontein (1777-1843), Harlingen (W. Eekhoff), 19 April 1847, postponed to 26 (30) April 1847 sqq., no. C (‘1647. Hoog 36 d. breed 50 d. [36 x 50 cm] Paneel. Het binnenste eener Vesting met krijgsvolk, in kostuum van den tijd van Frederik Hendrik[...]’), fl. 125, to his daughter Dieuwke Fontein (1800-79), Amsterdam;¹¹Van der Hoop Lijst, p. 38, no. 232: ‘Een idem van het binnenste eener Vesting door An. Palamedes, fl. 125’. collection of her husband, Adriaan van der Hoop (1778-1854), Amsterdam; his widow Dieuwke Fontein (1800-79), Santpoort;²²Note RMA. her granddaughter Olga E.A.E. Wüste, Baroness von Gotsch (1848-1924), Santpoort; donated to the museum by Miss Johanna Gerarda Fontein (1857-1941) from the estate of Olga E.A.E. Wüste, Baroness von Gotsch, 1924³³Provenance reconstructed in Pollmer 2004, p. 190, no. B5.

ObjectNumber: SK-A-3024

Credit line: Gift of J.G. Fontein, Santpoort

This painting of 1647 is apparently Palamedesz’s earliest dated cortegaarde (a Dutch derivation from the French corps de garde, or guardroom). In the late 1640s and early 1650s, he painted many such works.⁵⁵Several are illustrated in Naarden 1996, pp. 62-74, nos. 7-16; on this subject see also Sutton in Philadelphia etc. 1984, pp. xxxvi-xxxviii; Kersten 1998, pp. 183-217; Delft 1998, pp. 337-58, nos. 120-46. His guardroom scenes employ a darker palette and more dramatic contrasts of light and shade than his early works.⁶⁶Kolfin (2005, p. 113) unconvincingly relates this to the influence of Leonaert Bramer, who had returned to Delft from Italy in 1628. They are close to works by Jacob Duck and Willem Cornelisz Duyster, although Palamedesz’s technique is looser and less refined, as Sutton rightly observed.⁷⁷Sutton in Turner 1996, p. 832. The elegant figures in Palamedesz’s guardroom scenes can also be compared to those by Simon Kick (1603-52), who moved from Delft to Amsterdam in or before 1624.⁸⁸Such as the painting that was with Gebr. Douwes Fine Art, Amsterdam, in 1996; illustrated in Naarden 1996, p. 61, no. 6, pl. VI.

Kloek has noted similarities between Palamedesz’s painting and Rembrandt’s Night Watch of 1642.⁹⁹Note RMA. Sutton (in Philadelphia etc. 1984, p. 228) made the same remark about a painting from the mid- to late 1640s by Kick. The pose of the central figure is very close to that of Rembrandt’s Willem van Ruytenburch, and the composition with the highlighted officers standing out against the dark background is also comparable, as is the detail of the drum on the right. As Palamedesz appears to have been in Amsterdam on several occasions, it is not improbable that he knew The Night Watch. If so, this might also account for the darkening of the palette in his guardroom scenes.

The standing officer with the halberd appears to begiving an order to the seated man reaching for a cuirass on the right. Five of the men in the background are busy with their uniforms, dressing or undressing; the others are relaxing. The figure of the standing officer in his buff jacket features in a number of Palamedesz’s guardrooms, and his pose is also repeated several times.¹⁰¹⁰Among others the paintings in sale, London (Christie’s), 18 June 1954, no. 87, and in Leiden, Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal; illustrated in Naarden 1996, p. 73, fig. 15.I, p. 74, no. 16. The recurrence of specific figures and motifs in Palamedesz’s paintings indicates that he used figure studies, but relatively few of these have survived.¹¹¹¹Cf. Plomp in New York-London 2001, pp. 180-82, 477-79. However, a drawn study for the man tying his shoelaces is in Paris (fig. a).

Gerdien Wuestman, 2007

See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements

This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 227.

1934, p. 219, no. 1837a; 1976, p. 434, no. A 3024; 2007, no. 227

G. Wuestman, 2007, 'Anthonie Palamedesz., Soldiers in a Guardroom, 1647', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.4925