Ambushing a Convoy

In the wars of the late 17th century armies depended on long trains of wagons carrying bread, fodder and powder behind the troops, and raids on those convoys were part of every campaign. For Dutch painters of horses and soldiers the ambush became a stock subject.

Jan van Huchtenburgh painted this canvas as the companion to a Cavalry Engagement of exactly the same size, 53 by 62 centimetres, and signed both the same way, with an H and a B joined. The pair have shared every move since. In 1795 the French confiscated them with the rest of the stadholder's pictures and sent them to the Louvre, and after 1815 they returned to The Hague. This one belongs to the Mauritshuis and hangs in its Gallery Prince Willem V on the Buitenhof.