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.

The Guardhouse

c. 1645

David Teniers the Younger (Flemish, 1610-1690)

Flanders

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.

Oil on canvas

Painting and Sculpture of Europe