Ferdinand Bol: Five officers of the Gouda civic guard (1653)

(Museum Gouda, Gouda, The Netherlands)

A painting by the Dutch artist Ferdinand Bol (1616-1680). This is a civic guard piece (Dutch 'schuttersstuk') from the city of Gouda. In the 14th and 15th century Gouda had two separate civic guard guilds but after 1542 they were reorganized into a single civic guard. This new civic guard was organized into 4 separate compagnies, each of them was assigned to a district of the city and recognizable by a color: red (the Oosthaven district), white (district Gouwe), blue (district Westhaven) and orange (the market district). Each compagnie was commanded by a captain and all the entire guard was commanded by a colonel. This painting shows the 4 captains and the colonel of the civic guard of Gouda. Shows here are the colonel Govert van der Sluys (the man sitting on the left) with his captains Jan van Immerseel, Hendrick Herberts, Jan Herberts and Adriaen van Groenendyck. The man in the background without a hat is the servant Cornelis Jansz. This painting must have been an expensive commission as Ferdinand Bol lived in another city (Amsterdam, usually a local artist was contacted for a piece such as this) and was a very successful artist. Painting from 1653.