Object data
oil on panel
support: height 38 cm × width 51.7 cm
outer size: depth 5.5 cm (support incl. frame)
Anthonie Palamedesz
Soldiers in a Guardroom
1647
Inscriptions
- signature and date, bottom left: A. Palamedes. 1647
Technical notes
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.
Scientific examination and reports
- condition report: W. de Ridder, RMA, 13 March 2003
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 23 June 2003
Condition
Fair. A few losses appear in the jacket of the central figure. The thick varnish layer has discoloured and is matte in some areas.
Provenance
...; 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;1 collection of her husband, Adriaan van der Hoop (1778-1854), Amsterdam; his widow Dieuwke Fontein (1800-79), Santpoort;2 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, 19243
Object number: SK-A-3024
Credit line: Gift of J.G. Fontein, Santpoort
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.4 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
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.5 His guardroom scenes employ a darker palette and more dramatic contrasts of light and shade than his early works.6 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.7 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 1624.8
Kloek has noted similarities between Palamedesz’s painting and Rembrandt’s Night Watch of 1642.9 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.10 The recurrence of specific figures and motifs in Palamedesz’s paintings indicates that he used figure studies, but relatively few of these have survived.11 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.
Collection catalogues
1934, p. 219, no. 1837a; 1976, p. 434, no. A 3024; 2007, no. 227
Citation
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
(accessed 20 September 2024 17:43:24).