This dramatic nocturnal Italianate scene shows a group of bandits on horseback, weapons drawn with pistol barrels abutting. Pieter van Laer spent much of his career in Rome as part of a group of expatriate artists who lived in a neighborhood near the Piazza del Popolo known as the Bentvueghels or “Birds of a Feather,” where we went by the nickname Il Bamboccio, the “clumsy puppet” based on his physical disfigurement. The artist specialized in Roman street scenes featuring beggars, soldiers, rogues, cheats, pickpockets, peddlers, and artists. He achieved success both in Italy and in his native Holland.
