Soldiers Playing Cards in a Ruin, ca. 1710 – 1712

About the Work

In front of a somewhat dilapidated fortress, a group of soldiers are passing the time playing cards and smoking. The scene looks as if it had been drawn from life, but Watteau copied it from a painting by a little-known Dutch painter, making various changes in the process. Whereas the architecture is not very convinc- ing in its spatiality, every one of the figures is full of life and individuality, despite the extremely cursory manner and sparse means with which the artist portrayed them.