Backgammon players

Three backgammon players, two sitting, and one standing, at a table which holds the backgammon board, a clay pipe and smoking paraphenalia including a brazier and a paper with loose tobacco. Previously attributed to a follower of Anthonie Palamedes, this work appears closer to the style of his contemporary Pieter Codde (1599-1678). Codde was a Dutch painter and poet who worked primarily in Amsterdam. He was particularly productive in the 1620s and 1630s, painting mainly interior genre scenes. He is best known as a painter of interiors with numerous figures, often either elegant ladies and gentlemen in merry or musical companies, tric-trac players or soldiers in guardrooms. The theme of the Merry Company, in which he particularly specialized, became increasingly fashionable in the first half of the 17th century, especially in Haarlem and Amsterdam.