Guardroom Scene

Pieter Bout

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This charming and beautifully executed drawing is the work of the late 17th-century Brussels painter and draftsman, Pieter Bout. He painted views of towns, villages, ports and beaches in the tradition of Jan Brueghel. With a wealth of detail, he depicted here a scene in a guardroom. A group of well-dressed soldiers in the center plays cards. Behind them another, less elegant group, sits near the fireplace talking and drinking. Two figures on the left are sleeping, another in the foreground is putting on or removing his boots. Another bedraggled figure in the bottom right is dressing. Bouts continues the Dutch and Flemish tradition of guardroom scenes set by such artists as Anthonie Palamedesz and David Teniers earlier in the century.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art