Object data
oil on panel
support: height 54.5 cm × width 88.5 cm
outer size: depth 9 cm (support incl. frame)
Anthonie Palamedesz
Merry Company in a Room
1633
Inscriptions
- signature and date, top centre, on the frame of the left-hand picture on the wall: A. Palamedes 1633
Technical notes
The support is an oak panel, consisting of two horizontally grained planks, which has been cradled. The panel is bevelled on the right and on the left (the other edges are not visible because of the cradling). Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1601. The panel could have been ready for use by 1616, but a date in or after 1618 is more likely. The ground layer, which is probably light-coloured, was applied with bold brushstrokes. The composition was sketched on the ground with a brush in brown, partly visible to the naked eye, in a medium that could not be detected with infrared reflectography. Several changes can be seen in the outlines of the figures, for instance of the fiddler in the centre, whose bow was moved twice. The paint was applied thickly in the foreground, whereas the figures in the background are painted transparently.
Scientific examination and reports
- condition report: W. de Ridder, RMA, 13 March 2003
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 7 July 2003
Condition
Fair. The paint layers are considerably abraded and the paint has become transparent. There is a horizontal crack 30 cm long at the left, just above the join. The varnish has discoloured and is matte in the retouched areas.
Provenance
...; collection Jonkheer Mr Jan Karel Jacob de Jonge (1828-80), The Hague;1 his wife, dowager of J.K.J. de Jonge, née De Kock, The Hague; from her son, Jonkheer Mr A.H.W. de Jonge, fl. 2,000, to the museum, through the mediation of the Vereniging Rembrandt, 1900
Object number: SK-A-1906
Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Anthonie Palamedesz (Delft 1601 - Amsterdam 1673)
Anthonie Palamedesz was born in Delft in 1601 as a son of a gem-cutter. His teacher is unknown, but it has been suggested that he studied with Michiel van Mierevelt. In 1621, Palamedesz entered the Guild of St Luke, of which he was warden in 1635 and several times between 1653 and 1673. He was probably in Amsterdam around 1626, as he copied one or more of the sitters from a civic guard piece by Claes Pietersz Lastman (d. 1625) in that year.2 In 1630, he married Anna Joosten van Hoorendijk in Delft. In 1658, seven years after the death of his first wife, he married Aagje Woedewart. Palamedesz died in 1673 during a visit to Amsterdam. Among his pupils were his brother, the battle painter Palamedes Palamedesz I (1607-38), his son Palamedes Palamedesz (1633-1705) and Ludolf de Jongh (1616-79).
The bulk of Palamedesz’s oeuvre consists of genre scenes and portraits. There are few works that carry a date prior to 1632, but his earliest genre scenes, elegant companies in the open air in a style derived from Esaias van de Velde, can be dated to the mid-1620s. From the early 1630s onwards he painted numerous so-called merry companies in the manner of Dirck Hals and Pieter Codde. A document from 1636 reveals that he painted figures in a picture by Johannes van Vught, and it appears that he also did the same for Dirck van Delen, Bartholomeus van Bassen, and possibly for Anthonie de Lorme as well. Palamedesz’s military guardrooms were produced in the late 1640s and the 1650s. He continued painting genre scenes until the end of his life, but the majority of his dated works from 1650 onwards are portraits.
Gerdien Wuestman, 2007
References
Van Bleyswijck 1667, II, pp. 847-48; Houbraken I, 1718, p. 304, II, 1719, p. 33; Havard II, 1880, pp. 1-70; Bredius 1890, pp. 308-13; Haverkorn van Rijsewijk 1891a, p. 46; Sutton in Turner 1996, pp. 831-32; Rüger in New York-London 2001, pp. 318-20
Entry
Palamedesz painted several merry companies between 1632 and 1634 that are related to this one, such as those in Helsinki and The Hague of 1632, and the painting dated 1634 in Vienna.3 All display the stylistic influence of Haarlem and Amsterdam artists like Pieter Codde, Dirck Hals, Willem Duyster and Hendrick Pot. Palamedesz’s subject matter, however, has more in common with that of Esaias van de Velde, for while the first group of artists quite often painted tavern and brothel scenes, Palamedesz concentrated mainly on the refined pleasures of the elite.4
The painting in the Rijksmuseum is particularly close to the merry company in The Hague.5 Both works show elegantly dressed figures in a light and quite plainly furnished room. The men and women are grouped around a table in the right half of the composition, and are drinking, making music and playing a board-game, probably tric-trac. One characteristic element is the central figure gazing out at the viewer, who is mirrored in the Rijksmuseum painting by the woman holding a glass. The servant pouring wine on the far left, who reappears time and again in different poses and positions in Palamedesz’s oeuvre until the very end of his career, is almost identical in both works. One striking detail in the Rijksmuseum painting is the sword lying on the floor.
The symbolic meaning of Palamedesz’s merry companies is the subject of discussion. Sutton proposed that the servant pouring wine might stand for Temperance, while Rüger suggested that the stormy sea and the rocky landscape in the paintings in the background might allude to the deprivations the virtuous have to endure, but both authors’ interpretations are tentative.6 According to Briels, the scenes should be interpreted as warnings against sensual pleasure.7 However, there do not seem to be any explicit references to drunkenness or lascivious behaviour in the form of innkeepers or bawds in Palamedesz’s works.8
One complicating factor is that Palamedesz mixed different genres together. He also painted real families as merry companies, and the distinction is not always clear.9 Kolfin rightly argues that it is unlikely that patrons would deliberately have allowed themselves and their families to be portrayed in a context that was associated with loose living.10
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. 226.
Literature
Havard II, 1880, pp. 37, 51-52
Collection catalogues
1903, p. 204, no. 1834; 1934, p. 218, no. 1834; 1960, p. 237, no. 1834; 1976, p. 434, no. A 1906; 2007, no. 226
Citation
G. Wuestman, 2007, 'Anthonie Palamedesz., Merry Company in a Room, 1633', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.4930
(accessed 20 September 2024 18:31:59).