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拍品專文
In the present painting, a group of eleven figures - officers, soldiers, two women, and boys attired in brightly colored costumes - are assembled in a tall, shadowed space. Two sappers, seated and kneeling at the right, converse over a map that they have spread out on a drum. At the left an elegantly attired officer with a young lady seated at his left raises his roemer, perhaps in a festive toast. Tall stone archways in the background reveal additional architecture.
The painting's subject has been identified, perhaps correctly, as a scene of soldiers relaxing before attempting to besiege a city. The presence of women in the group in no way obviates a military subject. Armies in the seventeenth century always traveled with an entourage; indeed the camp followers - women, children, tradesmen, soetelaars (sutlers), tramps and vagabonds - sometimes outnumbered the regular troops.
Prior to 1895 the present work carried the false signature of Godfried Schalcken, who enjoyed considerable renown in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; however, the painting is in fact by Simon Kick, whose earliest dated works are a Rembrandtesque Man in a Turban Reading a Book from 1637 (Art Institute, Dayton) and a Study of an Old Man from 1639 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Inv. no. A2841). Although Kick's only other dated works are from 1648, in all likelihood he had begun painting guardroom scenes well before that date. Two of these dated works are related in style and subject to this painting: Soldiers Resting (Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin, no. 858A; destroyed 1945) and the Standard Bearer with Other Soldiers, formerly in the Baszanger collection, Geneva.
The latter work and the present lot also share a similar design - a somewhat crowded composition with an officer toasting prominently while the other figures strike poses of studied informality - as well as some of the same models. Also characteristic of Kick are the relatively large-scale diagonal composition and individual figure motifs, such as the toasting gesture and the lounging officer. The latter motif reappears in Kick's Officers and Soldiers (Kunstmuseum, Basel), a painting that is also comparable for its grand architectural setting - the vaulted interior of a great hall or church - and its unusual square format. Apparently Kick shared Willem Duyster's taste for soldier themes and a refined technique and perhaps also something of his brother-in-law's original approach to painting formats; Kick, however, never experimented like Duyster with circular or oval panels. The artist differs from Duyster in his stronger tonal contrasts and bolder colors, qualities undoubtedly related to the fact that his career lasted longer; while Duyster, who died in 1635, worked at the height of the tonal phase of Dutch painting, Kick lived until 1652.
The painting's subject has been identified, perhaps correctly, as a scene of soldiers relaxing before attempting to besiege a city. The presence of women in the group in no way obviates a military subject. Armies in the seventeenth century always traveled with an entourage; indeed the camp followers - women, children, tradesmen, soetelaars (sutlers), tramps and vagabonds - sometimes outnumbered the regular troops.
Prior to 1895 the present work carried the false signature of Godfried Schalcken, who enjoyed considerable renown in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; however, the painting is in fact by Simon Kick, whose earliest dated works are a Rembrandtesque Man in a Turban Reading a Book from 1637 (Art Institute, Dayton) and a Study of an Old Man from 1639 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Inv. no. A2841). Although Kick's only other dated works are from 1648, in all likelihood he had begun painting guardroom scenes well before that date. Two of these dated works are related in style and subject to this painting: Soldiers Resting (Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin, no. 858A; destroyed 1945) and the Standard Bearer with Other Soldiers, formerly in the Baszanger collection, Geneva.
The latter work and the present lot also share a similar design - a somewhat crowded composition with an officer toasting prominently while the other figures strike poses of studied informality - as well as some of the same models. Also characteristic of Kick are the relatively large-scale diagonal composition and individual figure motifs, such as the toasting gesture and the lounging officer. The latter motif reappears in Kick's Officers and Soldiers (Kunstmuseum, Basel), a painting that is also comparable for its grand architectural setting - the vaulted interior of a great hall or church - and its unusual square format. Apparently Kick shared Willem Duyster's taste for soldier themes and a refined technique and perhaps also something of his brother-in-law's original approach to painting formats; Kick, however, never experimented like Duyster with circular or oval panels. The artist differs from Duyster in his stronger tonal contrasts and bolder colors, qualities undoubtedly related to the fact that his career lasted longer; while Duyster, who died in 1635, worked at the height of the tonal phase of Dutch painting, Kick lived until 1652.