A pair of Dutch Delft blue and white tile picture panels depicting Roman Soldiers, 17th century

of large size, each made of thirty six tiles, painted with a full portrait view of a Roman soldier standing before a battle scene, some tiles repaired,

Comparative Literature
Dutch Tiles in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1984, pp. 122-131

Both mounted in later wooden frames. The panel with the figure facing his left: 4 tiles are broken and repaired, otherwise there are small scattered chips to corners of tiles. The panel with the figure facing his right: 6 tiles are broken and repaired.
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The depiction of soldiers, particularly Dutch soldiers on Dutch Delft tiles was very popular during the first half of the 17^th century. The images that Dutch artists produced were often derived or copied from Jacob de Gheyn’s Wapenhandelinghe van roers, musqetten ende spiessen (The Exercise of Armes) first published in 1607. Whilst the exact image sources of the present examples are unknown, they do have some similar features to the hugely popular and reproduced engraving series Roman Heroes by Hendrick Goltzius, first printed in 1586. A smaller picture panel painted with a soldier with his back turned and dated 1634,  taken from the Marcus Valerius engraving from this series, is in the collection of the Rijkmuseum, Amsterdam, object number: BK-1955-365.

A highly comparable pair of tile picture panels of this scale, depicting Roman soldiers standing under architectural arches is in the Rijkmuseum, object no.: BK-NM-1950, published by Dr Ferrand W. Hudig, Delfter Fayence, 1929, p. 94, abb. 81. A further picture panel depicting the Roman General Scipio Africanus the Elder, titled ‘SCIPIO’ is in the Rijkmuseum, object no: BK-NM-5291., which would suggest that such panels were produced in series.

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