Arms and Instruments of War

In 1746 an inventory of La Granja, the royal palace in the hills above Segovia, listed this canvas in the pieza de cubiertos, the room where the table service was kept. It belonged to Elisabeth Farnese, the second wife of Philip V and the most determined picture-buyer in that household. Heaps of war gear like this one were an Antwerp speciality, and Antwerp is where Boel worked. He lays out a cannon on its carriage, a long sword across the front, steel armour tipped over on the ground, a kettledrum on its side and a trumpet, more than three metres of it, arranged for the eye rather than for use, with a dog standing at the left looking out past the edge. The museum dates the picture no more closely than the 17th century, and it is not on view. In the lower left corner the number 567 is still legible on the paint, the one it carried at La Granja and then at Aranjuez, where in 1818 it hung in the room kept for the king's own table service.