The Reveller

Hendrick ter Brugghen signed and dated this canvas in 1627, high up at the left, when he was at the height of his career in Utrecht. In Rome he had learned to paint life-size half-length figures in Caravaggio's manner, pressed close to the viewer, and back in the Dutch Republic he dressed them in the theatrical, fanciful costumes local buyers enjoyed and let them behave as rowdily as they liked. This reveller is one of them. For a long time the picture was hard to judge. Time had damaged it badly, and at some point it had been painted over. With the support of the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung, a German foundation that funds museum projects, the canvas was restored and studied closely, and the changes ter Brugghen made to it himself while painting can now be seen clearly again. When it went back on view in September 2022, the museum hung it beside works by Gerrit van Honthorst, his fellow painter in Utrecht, so that visitors could compare the two. It is the only painting by ter Brugghen in the Munich collection.