Soldiers before a Sutler's Booth 1660s
Oil on canvas | 67.0 x 81.7 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 400682
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A late work showing the usually cast of soldiers and their camp-followers. A Sutler’s Booth is a cross between a beer-tent and a convenience store, bringing necessary provisions to the soldier’s camp and selling them at inflated prices. There is such a tent at either side of this composition. Other military elements are provided by the smoking battle-field in the background, the swaggering soldier with mistress riding pillion, the group playing cards in the left mid-ground, the horseman making himself at home to the right and the man relieving himself at the extreme right. The soldiers here and in so many images of this date resemble ‘Merode’s Brethren’, as described in Johann Grimmelshausen’s ‘Simplicissimus’ of 1668: good-for-nothing, combat-shy, semi-deserters, given to idleness and thieving and ‘best compared to gypsies’. The crippled man at the left foreground is a reminder of the saying, also quoted by Grimmelshausen: ‘A young soldier makes an old beggar’. Signed lower left: 'PHWS'
Provenance
Purchased for George III by Dalton for 400 crowns
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Medium and techniques
Oil on canvas
Measurements
67.0 x 81.7 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
87.6 x 102.0 x 7.2 cm (frame, external)
Other number(s)
Alternative title(s)
Encampment, previously entitled.