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Lot Essay
This very well-preserved panel is a fine example of Palamedesz.'s guardroom interiors, comparable in quality with such examples as that of 1647 in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. A3024), that of 1654 in the collection of the National Museum, Warsaw (inv. no. 13115; on loan to the Gallery at Lazienki, formerly in the collection of King Stanislaw II Augustus), or that in the Stedelijk Museum 'De Lakenhal', Leiden (inv. no. 579). Such guardroom interiors became a popular subject for Palamedesz. in the 1640s, and continued as a core of his repertoire until his death; the present picture is notable amongst them not only for its quality of execution, but also for the particularly theatrical drama of the lighting in the composition.
The upper half of the trumpeter in the present picture reprises that of the seated figure in the centre of the Warsaw painting: Palamedesz. often repeated figures in his oeuvre - preparatory drawings for some of which are known - and the motif of a man sounding a trumpet seems to have been one of his favourites in this genre. It is perhaps a mark of Palamedesz.'s fondness for it that he employed the trumpeter, standing at a balustrade, as the subject of a single figure painting sold, Sotheby's, Amsterdam, 18 May 2004, lot 10.
The upper half of the trumpeter in the present picture reprises that of the seated figure in the centre of the Warsaw painting: Palamedesz. often repeated figures in his oeuvre - preparatory drawings for some of which are known - and the motif of a man sounding a trumpet seems to have been one of his favourites in this genre. It is perhaps a mark of Palamedesz.'s fondness for it that he employed the trumpeter, standing at a balustrade, as the subject of a single figure painting sold, Sotheby's, Amsterdam, 18 May 2004, lot 10.