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''The Guard Room'' is a 1642 oil on panel painting by 
It combines a still life of military uniforms, pistols, spears, sabres, shields and a drum in the foreground with a genre scene of military life in the middle ground and a battle scene in the background. It was painted the year when
''The Guard Room'' is a 1642 oil on panel painting by David Teniers the Younger
David Teniers the Younger or David Teniers II (bapt. 15 December 1610 – 25 April 1690) was a Flemish Baroque painter, printmaker, draughtsman, miniaturist painter, staffage painter, copyist and art curator. He was an extremely versatile arti ...
, now in the Hermitage Museum
The State Hermitage Museum ( rus, Государственный Эрмитаж, r=Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ, links=no) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is the list of ...
in St Petersburg. It is signed and dated "David Teniers F. 1642" at the bottom left. Several unsigned but probably autograph variants also survive, such as at the Catherine Palace
The Catherine Palace (russian: Екатерининский дворец, ) is a Rococo palace in Tsarskoye Selo (Pushkin), 30 km south of St. Petersburg, Russia. It was the summer residence of the Russian tsars. The Palace is part of the ...
near St Petersburg and the Walters Art Museum
The Walters Art Museum, located in Mount Vernon-Belvedere, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is a public art museum founded and opened in 1934. It holds collections established during the mid-19th century. The museum's collection was amassed ...
in Baltimore, USA. An early copy by an unknown artist after the Hermitage work is now in the National Museum of Sweden.
It combines a still life of military uniforms, pistols, spears, sabres, shields and a drum in the foreground with a genre scene of military life in the middle ground and a battle scene in the background. It was painted the year when Francisco de Melo
Dom Francisco de Melo (1597 – 18 December 1651) was a Portuguese nobleman who served as a Spanish general during the Thirty Years' War.
Biography
Francisco was born in Estremoz, Portugal. From 1632 to 1636 he had been Spanish ambassador to th ...
, new ruler of the Spanish Netherlands
Spanish Netherlands (Spanish: Países Bajos Españoles; Dutch: Spaanse Nederlanden; French: Pays-Bas espagnols; German: Spanische Niederlande.) (historically in Spanish: ''Flandes'', the name "Flanders" was used as a ''pars pro toto'') was the Ha ...
, twice defeated a French army, thus briefly holding back their advance on Antwerp
Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,
. To some extent it anticipates his 1643 '' The Oude Voetboog Guild in the Grote Markt''.
The work's provenance is unknown until 16 April 1738, when it was auctioned from the collection of Baron Schönborn. It then entered the collection of the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel. In 1806 it was looted by Napoleon's troops and assigned to Josephine Beauharnais
Josephine may refer to:
People
* Josephine (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name)
* Josephine (singer), a Greek pop singer
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*Josephine, Texas, United States
*Mount Josephine (disambiguation)
* Josephine Count ...
, who kept it at the Château de Malmaison. It was then sold to Alexander I of Russia
Alexander I (; – ) was Emperor of Russia from 1801, the first King of Congress Poland from 1815, and the Grand Duke of Finland from 1809 to his death. He was the eldest son of Emperor Paul I and Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg.
The son of ...
with thirty-seven other works from Malmaison in 1814.Gosudarstvennyĭ Ėrmitazh, ''Dutch and Flemish Paintings from the Hermitage'' (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1988), page xx
References