Soldiers Playing Cards and Dice (The Cheats)

Valentin de Boulogne (c. 1591-1632) was a French painter who worked in Rome, known for the dark, dramatically lit genre subjects that make him the most accomplished French follower of Caravaggio. Soldiers Playing Cards and Dice (The Cheats) from c. 1618-20 depicts card sharps and dice players in the dark, dramatically lit manner that Valentin learned from Caravaggio and developed into his own more psychologically complex style. The c. 1618-20 date places this in Valentin's early Roman period, when he was producing the genre subjects that are his most accomplished works.

The Cheats is important in the history of Caravaggism because it demonstrates the dark, dramatically lit genre manner that Valentin developed from Caravaggio's example. The card sharp subject was a favorite of Caravaggio and his followers because it allowed the depiction of deceit and psychological drama in the dramatic chiaroscuro that Caravaggio invented, and Valentin's treatment is among the most psychologically complex in the Caravaggist tradition.

The Cheats is Valentin's Caravaggist psychological drama: card sharps and dice players rendered in the dark, dramatically lit manner that Valentin developed from Caravaggio's example into his own more psychologically complex style. The c. 1618-20 painting is Caravaggism at its most psychologically perceptive.