Anthonie Palamedesz.

Anthonie Palamedesz., also Antonie Palamedesz, birth name Antonius Stevens – 27 November 1673 in Amsterdam), was a Dutch portrait and genre painter. He is in particular known for his merry company paintings depicting elegant figures engaged in play, music and conversation as well as guardroom scenes showing soldiers in guardrooms. Like many Dutch painters of his time, he painted portraits and still lifes, including vanitas still lifes. He further painted the staffage in a few views of the interior of churches. He played a major role in the development of genre painting in Delft in the mid 17th century.

Life He was born in Leith, Scotland as the son of Palamedes Willemsz. Stevens and Marie Arsene (in Dutch, called Maeijken van Naerssen) and was baptized on 9 November 1602 in South Leith.

His father had married Maeijken van Naerssen in Leith on 6 June 1601. The couple had three children: Guilliaem (1601-1688), who became a tailor, Anthonie and Palamedes I (1605-1638) who also became a painter.

In his guardroom scenes which he painted well into the 1660s, Palamedes typically depicts a large hall of a ruin or a castle, which is open at the rear and usually has a large fireplace. The centre of the scene is almost always taken up by an officer, who is chubby and wearing a tall hat and a small moustache. In many of his guardroom scenes, Palamedesz. achieves the elegance and monumentality seen in the schutterij (civic guard) group portraits so popular in 17th-century Dutch painting. His guardroom scenes are unique, in that he includes women in their role as mothers and not their more conventional role of courtesans. Palamedesz.' guardroom scenes thus represent the masculine outdoors that has been pacified and tamed by feminine domestic motherhood. In other words, the apparently virile guard room scenes are in fact an embodiment of masculinity pacified, reflecting a broader process in 17th-century Dutch society of growing femininity and civility.

The interiors of these scenes are usually lit by a strong light entering from the left from two unknown sources. The figures are often typically crowded on one side of the picture. These scenes are reminiscent of works of contemporary artists in Northern Holland such as Dirck Hals, Willem Duyster, Pieter Codde and Hendrik Pot whose works Palamedesz. must have known. He shows originality in his treatment of light and tone in his pictures. His Family Portrait of 1635 (Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp) recalls the Portrait of Anthonie Reyniers and His Family (Philadelphia Museum of Art) painted in 1631 by the Antwerp artist Cornelis de Vos. It is possible that his more dynamic treatment of family groups was due to his experience painting genre scenes which made him more aware of new ways of posing figures and arranging groups. This may explain the animated and lively character of the Family Portrait of 1635.

In the Family portrait of 1665 (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam) he depicts a family group of eight among various animals and dead game on the rolling terrain of a country estate not dissimilar to paintings of the Flemish artist Gonzales Coques.

Other works He also painted still lifes, including vanitas still lifes and kitchen pieces. He further possibly painted the staffage in a few views of church and palace interiors by Dirck van Delen and Anthonie de Lorme and in the Great Assembly of the States General in 1651 by Bartholomeus van Bassen.