In the 1640s David Teniers produced numerous scenes with soldiers, subjects that no doubt owed their popularity to the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) then enveloping Europe. The Southern Netherlands, and Teniers’s native city of Antwerp in particular, were especially vulnerable, pressed by the Dutch to the north and the French to the south. Unlike the early satirical ‘monkey pictures’ that lampooned the perceived excesses of soldiers, the present painting pays tribute to the important role played by the military in contemporary life. The gravity of the scene is evident in the image of a prisoner, perhaps a deserter or an enemy combatant, who has been brought, hands bound, before an officer who pronounces the prisoner’s sentence.

The present painting is a contemporary copy of a fully autograph painting on copper and of slightly smaller size (Christie’s, London, 7 July 2000, lot 31). Though largely the same, the two paintings nevertheless exhibit a handful of differences in detail. Among the most notable changes are the distinct cloud formations that appear in each and the lack of a sword slung from the waist of the figure at left in the present painting. Three further versions of this subject are known (Lange, Berlin, 7-8 February 1939, lot 55, as Teniers; Sotheby’s, London, 24 November 1971, lot 7; Fischer, Lucerne, 27 July 1926, lot 55, as Teniers).

Irene Bergman settled as a refugee in New York in 1942, having fled Nazi persecution in her native Berlin. Shortly after her arrival she obtained a position as a secretary to a banker, eventually working her way up to senior vice president at the asset management firm Stralem & Co. At her death, she was the longest-working woman on Wall Street.