page_title: Anton Goubau
section_title: Works
hierarchical_section_title: Anton Goubau / Works
context_page_description: Anton Goubau or Anton Goebouw was a Flemish Baroque painter. He spent time in Rome where he moved in the circle of the Bamboccianti, Dutch and Flemish genre painters who created small cabinet paintings of the everyday life of the lower classes in Rome and its countryside. He is known for his Italianate landscapes and genre paintings in the style of the Bamboccianti and his history paintings with mythological and religious themes.
context_section_description: Goubau is best known as a painter of market scenes placed in a Roman or Mediterranean setting, often decorated with many small figures in the style of the Bamboccianti. The name Bamboccianti is given to a loose group of principally Dutch and Flemish genre painters who were active in Rome from about 1625 until the end of the seventeenth century and took as the subject of their paintings the everyday life of the lower classes in Rome and its countryside. During his trip to Italy, Goubau was able to familiarize himself with the work of masters like Paul Bril (known for his Italianate landscapes) and the Bamboccianti painters Jan Miel, Jan Both, Michael Sweerts and Johannes Lingelbach. This was crucial to the development of his style and subject matter along the Italianate genre style.
  On his return to Antwerp he painted Italianate landscapes with many small figures which show the influence of Bartholomew Breenbergh, Jan Both and the early Roman compositions of Jan Asselijn. He showed generally more interest in evoking a Roman atmosphere than correct topographical representation and combined several sites in Rome to create a kind of synthesis of the sights in Rome. In some paintings he shows a more specific topographical interest.
  He occasionally painted so-called 'guardroom scenes', a type of genre scene depicting an interior with officers and soldiers who spend their off duty time making merry. The genre had become popular in the mid-17th century, particularly in the Dutch Republic. In Flanders there were also a few practitioners of the genre including David Teniers the Younger, Abraham Teniers, Gillis van Tilborch, Cornelis Mahu and Jan Baptist Tijssens the Younger. Guardroom scenes often included mercenaries and prostitutes dividing booty, harassing captives, or indulging in other forms of reprehensible activities. A good example of the genre is the Guardroom painting at the Kurpfälzisches Museum in Heidelberg, which depicts eight soldiers around a table in a monumental room. In line with the moralizing intent of the genre, the various figures depict the Flemish saying Kaart, kous en kan maakt menig arm man (Cards, women and drink have ruined many a man). The card players are crouching on the floor, while a provocatively dressed woman is playing a lute and a soldier with his back turned towards the viewer is raising his glass to a man who is smoking. A man slumped in the right corner represents 'acedia' (apathy), considered to be one of the seven cardinal sins. The painting also references the theme of vanitas through the still life of a standard and military equipment at the front on the right, which expresses the transience of power and fame.
  In addition to his cityscapes, Goubau painted many religious compositions, especially designed for churches in Antwerp. He also made a number of religious paintings on copper as part of a series made for the Spanish market to which other Flemish painters such as Willem van Herp, Erasmus Quellinus II, and possibly Abraham Willemsens contributed. The series is now kept in the Convent of las Comendadoras de Santiaga in Madrid.
  He painted portraits as evidenced by the portrait of Gaspar de Witte, which was engraved by Richard Collin for Cornelis de Bie's collection of artist biographers entitled Het Gulden Cabinet.
caption: Rocky landscape with figures, horses, goats, bulls and sheep by a fountain
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