Pieter Codde

PIETER CODDE (Amsterdam, 1599-1678)
"Soldiers playing cards in an interior".
Oil on panel.
Signed in the lower margin.
Measurements: 31.5 × 40.5 cm; 44 × 53.5 cm (frame).

This work represents a scene of genre in which a group of Dutch soldiers meets in a tavern to play cards. The composition, of careful intimacy and chromatic sobriety, is fully in the tradition of the Dutch school of the Golden Age, characterized by the meticulous treatment of light and the realistic observation of everyday life.

Codde was a master in the representation of scenes of company (conversation pieces) and domestic environments of the bourgeoisie and the militia. In this painting, Codde's brushwork refines the texture of the fabrics, the arrangement of the objects and the expressions of the characters with a refined narrative sense.

The soldiers, with expressive and ruddy faces, show defined and varied features: small eyes, prominent noses, wavy hair. They wear doublets of earthy tones, wide hats and high boots or gaiters, in accordance with the military fashion of the mid-17th century. One of them, concentrating, smokes a pipe while others concentrate expectantly on their cards.

The interior, soberly decorated, revolves around a wooden floor, a door at the back and the angle of a fireplace on the left, evoking the warmth of home in contrast to the rudeness of military life. In the foreground, a plate with sardines adds a detail of costumbrismo and verisimilitude, typical of Codde's naturalistic look.

Pieter Codde was a Dutch Baroque genre painter and portraitist. Some biographies place his training period in the workshop of Frans Hals, others consider him a pupil of Barent van Someren (1572-1632) or Cornelis van der Voort (1576-1624). As early as 1631, Codde lived in Sint Antoniesbreestraat, Amsterdam, which was then a fashionable street with many painters. His first work dates from 1626, "Portrait of a Young Girl," now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Many of his paintings deal with tavern or hunting subjects, or else have references to the subject of music, such as his first known genre painting, The Time of Dance (Louvre Museum, Paris) of 1627, The Musical Society of 1639, The Lute Player (Philadelphia Museum of Art) and The Concert (Uffizi Gallery, Florence). Another image hanging in the Uffizi Gallery is also a genre painting, The Conversation. Codde also painted religious and historical images, such as his 1645 Adoration of the Shepherds, in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.