Rombouts was among the early generation of Northern European artists who travelled to Rome in the wake of Caravaggio's death after 1610, perpetuating his legacy of depicting subjects dramatically-lit against dark backgrounds, and in unapologetically realistic detail. The choice of subject matter for the present painting, however – a bravo, merrily showing off his wine flask – is actually more akin to the work of artists such as Caravaggio's rival, Tommaso Salini (1575–1625), who specialised in depicting figures from the Roman streets and taverns.
Rombouts' œuvre shows that he favoured the subjects of The Senses and The Seven Deadly Sins. The present work clearly represents a figure personifying a feeling of revelry and pleasure, perhaps even Taste. He wears a flamboyant costume and hat, and holds a fiasco (an Italian, round-bottomed wine bottle encased in a straw basket), a common feature of Caravaggesque single-figure paintings from this time, such as the paintings at Stourhead, Wiltshire (fig. 1),1 or in the Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe (fig. 2).2
The palette here feels distinctly Northern European, as does the plasticity with which the figure is rendered, akin to the work of Rombouts' Dutch contemporaries who likewise travelled to Rome, such as Dirck van Baburen (1595–1624) and Matthias Stom (1600–1650). This near-sculptural quality, achieved through use of chiaroscuro, must also be attributed in part to the influence of Rombouts' Antwerp master, Abraham Janssens (1567–1632).
We are grateful to Dr Paul Huys Janssen for endorsing the attribution to Rombouts, on the basis of digital images.
1 https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/a-man-with-a-wine-flask-101352 -