General Rombouts painted mainly profane works as well as some altar pieces and civil commissions. His profane works depict
merry companies, musicians, card players, as well as some of the other Caraveggesque themes such as the denial of St Peter and the five senses. The composition
The two musicians (
Spencer Museum of Art) likely dates from the artist's Italian period. The typically Italian costumes, the rather mannered poses, the vague indication of space and stereotypical rendering of heads, hands and drapery point to a style preceding that of the genre scenes he painted after 1625. The themes of the five senses and the
seven deadly sins often appear in his work. Rombouts's
The Lute Player (,
Philadelphia Museum of Art) is not solely a portrait of a musician but also alludes to the five senses through the objects included in the composition: hearing (the lute), taste (the tankard), smell (the pipe), sight (the musical scores), and touch (the knife). The
Card and backgammon players. Fight over cards (–1630,
National Gallery of Denmark) has uncontrolled anger as its principal subject. Moralising depictions of the deadly sin of wrath (anger) had been a tradition in Northern art for centuries. Rombouts regularly included portraits of himself and his wife in his genre paintings. An example is the
Musical company with Bacchus (The Kremer Collection). Based on the two pendant portraits by
Anthony van Dyck of
Rombouts and
Rombouts's wife with their daughter in the Alte Pinakothek Munich, the couple in the middle of this composition is believed to represent Rombouts and his wife. That the two should be interpreted as a couple is made clear by the fact that the woman has put her hand on the man's arm. Couples making music or singing together was in
17th-century art and literature a popular reference to love. In addition, the tuning of the lute by the musician on the left is intended as a symbol of harmony in marriage. Music was further believed to operate as a cure for sorrow. In the composition described here the pleasures of music and love are enhanced by the wine brought in by
Bacchus. Rombouts also collaborated with specialist painters in Antwerp for whom he typically painted the
staffage in their compositions. Examples of such collaborations are the
Kitchen (1630s,
Hermitage Museum), a collaboration with still life painter
Adriaen van Utrecht and
The Holy Family (Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp), a collaboration with landscape painter
Jan Wildens.
Later work The popularity of the Caravaggio movement lost steam after 1630. Rombouts abandoned chiaroscuro effects for more tempered lighting, smoother transitions and a lighter palette. A good example of this is
The Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherina (Saint James's Church, Antwerp). This late style approaches the later work of Rubens, with whom he collaborated in the realization of the decorations for the Joyous Entry of Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in Antwerp in 1635. A late work directly influenced by Rubens is the
Descent from the Cross (1636,
St Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent), which directly cites
Rubens' treatment of the same subject of roughly two decades earlier (
Antwerp Cathedral). ==References==