Merry Company in a Room, Anthonie Palamedesz, 1633 – (Palamedesz Anthonie (Stevaerts)) ◄ Tidligere næste ►

Artist: Palamedesz Anthonie (Stevaerts)

dato: 1633

størrelse: 55 x 89 cm

Teknik: Oil On Panel

Palamedesz painted several merry companies between 1632 and 1634 that are related to this one, such as those in Helsinki and The Hague of 1632, and the painting dated 1634 in Vienna.3 All display the stylistic influence of Haarlem and Amsterdam artists like Pieter Codde, Dirck Hals, Willem Duyster and Hendrick Pot. Palamedesz’s subject matter, however, has more in common with that of Esaias van de Velde, for while the first group of artists quite often painted tavern and brothel scenes, Palamedesz concentrated mainly on the refined pleasures of the elite.4 The painting in the Rijksmuseum is particularly close to the merry company in The Hague.5 Both works show elegantly dressed figures in a light and quite plainly furnished room. The men and women are grouped around a table in the right half of the composition, and are drinking, making music and playing a board-game, probably tric-trac. One characteristic element is the central figure gazing out at the viewer, who is mirrored in the Rijksmuseum painting by the woman holding a glass. The servant pouring wine on the far left, who reappears time and again in different poses and positions in Palamedesz’s oeuvre until the very end of his career, is almost identical in both works. One striking detail in the Rijksmuseum painting is the sword lying on the floor. The symbolic meaning of Palamedesz’s merry companies is the subject of discussion. Sutton proposed that the servant pouring wine might stand for Temperance, while Rüger suggested that the stormy sea and the rocky landscape in the paintings in the background might allude to the deprivations the virtuous have to endure, but both authors’ interpretations are tentative.6 According to Briels, the scenes should be interpreted as warnings against sensual pleasure.7 However, there do not seem to be any explicit references to drunkenness or lascivious behaviour in the form of innkeepers or bawds in Palamedesz’s works.8 One complicating factor is that Palamedesz mixed different genres together. He also painted real families as merry companies, and the distinction is not always clear.9 Kolfin rightly argues that it is unlikely that patrons would deliberately have allowed themselves and their families to be portrayed in a context that was associated with loose living.10 Gerdien Wuestman, 2007 See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 226.