Paintings Drawings Sculptures 2016 - Jean Luc Baroni

Painted at the age of 21, it is a work of great confidence,
both playful and allusive. Barbara Gaehtgens illustrates
Caravaggio’s famous Cardsharps to highlight the similar
trickery which is playing out here: the young boy on the
left, who perhaps has been enticed amongst the ruins to
gamble, is being cheated by the other two, one of whom
is similarly dressed in a fine slashed jerkin with a velvet
hat picked out in gold. He holds up the Ace of Clubs
whilst smiling out at us. The duped boy leans on a black
fur coat, red cheeked and open mouthed; his opponent,
looking thoroughly at ease, has undone his jacket, rolled
up his cuffs and thrown off his shoes. Behind, amongst the
classical ruins, a Bamboccianti setting, a donkey is being
led through an arch. Van der Werff seems to be looking
both backwards, to the subjects and settings so loved
by the Dutch artists who went to Rome in the early 17 th
century, and forwards to the exquisite cabinet pictures,
painted so smoothly in the fijnschilder technique; full
of elegant clothes, elaborate allegories and the classical
references so popular in late 17 th century Holland. The
soft glow of lighting and extraordinary attention to texture
and detail are characteristic of Van der Werff’s best work
and the painter has proudly signed and dated the picture
right in the centre on the block of ancient stone which the
young cardsharp leans against.
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