A wooded landscape with soldiers resting and playing dice next to a track

Hitherto unrecorded, this exceptionally well preserved panel of 1611 was executed when the artist was working at the height of his powers. The following year, Vrancx was elected head dean of the Antwerp painters guild and he married Maria Pamphilij, the daughter of a picture dealer and the sister-in-law of the artist Tobias Verhaecht, thus cementing his position at the very forefront of the art scene in Antwerp. Landscapes with military activity - normally battles and cavalry engagements - make up the large majority of Vrancx's ouput and their development has recently been traced by Joost Vander Auwera (see his 'Historical Fact and Artistic Fiction: The face of the Eighty Years' War in Southern Netherlandish paintings, in particular those of Sebastiaen Vrancx (1573-1647) and Pieter Snayers (1592-1667)', in the Essay Volume of the catalogue of the exhibition, 1648 War and Peace in Europe, Munster and Osnabruck 1998-1999, pp. 461ff.). Vrancx was himself involved with the militia (he became a member of the civic guard in 1613) so presumably was able to observe soldiers in the field at first hand.

This picture represents one of the rare instances in which Vrancx has elected to depict soldiers relaxing during a pause in the fighting. The scene is a lazy summer's day with no threat of danger in sight. The Breughelian composition with a central, tree-lined track receding into the distance is familiar enough, but the soldiers' activities - chatting, playing dice and buying fruit and ale from market travellers - provide a refreshing alternative to how they are normally shown plundering, killing and fighting. No other versions or copies of this composition are known.