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Card and Backgammon Players. Fight over Cards
attributed to Theodoor Rombouts (Flemish, 1597–1637)
earlier ascribed to Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (Italian, 1571–1610)
earlier ascribed to Orazio Gentileschi (Italian, 1563–1639)
1616-1626
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- height 150 cm, width 241 cm, height 172.2 cm, width 262.6 cm
- Culture
- Flemish
- Museum
- SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
- Rights
- Public Domain Mark: SMK waives its rights in this photograph, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
About this work
In a tavern a card player has drawn a knife and is about to attack his victim, firmly grabbing his short hair. The victim, a fellow player from the other side of the table, cries out and seeks to ward off the blow with an open hand. The light falls harshly onto this brawl from the left, accentuating the drama of the tense situation. The card players, the half-figure composition, the realism, and the stark contrast between light and darkness (chiaroscuro) are all elements borrowed from the Italian Baroque artist Caravaggio, whom Rombouts got to know during a prolonged stay in Italy. By making uncontrolled anger the main subject of the painting the Flemish painter draws on an ancient Dutch tradition for creating moralising depictions of the seven deadly sins. Wrath was one of them.
