Photograph by Ed Pollard, Hasselblad H4D50 - 2020.

Guardroom Scene with African Soldier Cleaning Pistols

Attribution Abraham Teniers (Flemish, 1629 - 1670)

Previous Attribution David Teniers the Younger (Flemish, 1610 - 1690)

CultureFlemish

Dateca. 1650-1665

MediumOil on panel

Dimensions19 3/4 × 27 3/4 in. (50.2 × 70.5 cm)
Overall, Frame: 27 1/4 × 35 in. (69.2 × 88.9 cm)

Signed"D. Teniers fec.", lower right side.

Credit LineMuseum purchase

Object number2020.7

On View

Chrysler Museum of Art, Gallery 206

DescriptionThis is an oil on panel genre painting of a guardroom with an African man polishing a pistol in the foreground, amidst a formidable collection of armor, while other figures loiter in the background. The frame is gilt baroque-style hand-carved wooden frame typical of the Parisian art trade in the 19th century. The panel is signed D. Teniers fec., lower right side.
Label TextAbraham Teniers Netherlandish, 1629–1670 Guardroom Scene with African Soldier Cleaning Pistols, ca. 1650–65 Oil on panel The man in the foreground of this seventeenthcentury guardroom scene is looking up from cleaning pistols. Who is he? There are very few portraits of African men in Flemish art, but foreign soldiers had been a common sight in Flanders for a long time. This painting was likely made just after the end of nearly eighty years of religious war between Spanish-controlled Catholic Flanders and neighboring Protestant Holland. This was a war funded on both sides through colonization, plunder, and slavery. Museum purchase 2020.7ProvenanceErnest May, Paris. Private Collection, New York, by whom sold at Sotheby’s, New York, March 14, 1951, lot 53 to Fritz Katz. By descent to Stephen Katz (grandson of Fritz Katz). Offered at Sotheby’s New York, February 4, 2020 (did not sell). Purchased from Stephen Katz by Chrysler Museum of Art, April 2020.