Skip to Content
Closed now, next open Thursday. Closed now, next open Thursday.

The Guardhouse

Vertical oil painting of a large pile of discarded armor, weapons, and other items in a guardhouse, including a rolled-up white, yellow, red, and blue flag and a drum. At left, a boy in light-blue clothing holds a gray coat. In the background, a group of men huddle together.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

Image actions

  • Vertical oil painting of a large pile of discarded armor, weapons, and other items in a guardhouse, including a rolled-up white, yellow, red, and blue flag and a drum. At left, a boy in light-blue clothing holds a gray coat. In the background, a group of men huddle together.

Date:

1640/50

Artist:

David Teniers, the Younger
Flemish, 1610-1690

About this artwork

The versatile Flemish painter David Teniers turned to military paraphernalia as the subject of his still lifes in the mid-1640s, as the long conflict of the Thirty Years’ War was drawing to a close. Here soldiers play cards in the dim interior of a guardhouse, while a page carries the officers’ cloaks. However, the chief subject of the work is the pile of discarded armor, weaponry, and parade gear—a saddle, musket, powder horn, charging spanner, and gauntlets—in the immediate foreground. In treating armor as a still-life subject, Teniers followed the precedent of Jan Breughel the Elder, whose daughter he had married.

Status

On View, Gallery 239

Department

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist

David Teniers, the younger

Title

The Guardhouse

Place

Flanders (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1640–1650

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

72.6 × 55.4 cm (28 9/16 × 21 13/16 in.)

Credit Line

Charles L. Hutchinson Collection

Reference Number

1894.1029

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/867/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

Share

Sign up for our enewsletter to receive updates.

Learn more

Image actions

Share