''The Sentry'' is an oil-on-canvas painting by Dutch artist

Carel Fabritius Carel Pietersz. Fabritius (; bapt. 27 February 1622 – 12 October 1654) was a Dutch painter. He was a pupil of Rembrandt and worked in his studio in Amsterdam. Fabritius, who was a member of the Delft School, developed his own artistic style ...

, created in 1654. Its dimensions are 68 by 58 cm (27 by 23 in). The work is in the collection of the Staatliches Museum in

Schwerin Schwerin (; Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch dialect, Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch Low German: ''Swerin''; Polabian language, Polabian: ''Zwierzyn''; Latin: ''Suerina'', ''Suerinum'') is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Germ ...

. It represents a resting

sentry Sentry or The Sentry may refer to: Marvel Comics *Sentry (Kree) *Sentry (Curtis Elkins) *Sentry (Robert Reynolds) *Senator Ward (comics) or Sentry Vehicles *Sentry (AUV), an autonomous underwater vehicle used to measure deep-ocean data *E-3 Sentr ...

and a

dog The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the gray wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it was selectively bred from a population of wolves during the Late Pleistocene by hunter-gatherers. ...

. The painting was cleaned in 2004. During this treatment, old overpainting dating to the eighteenth century or earlier was removed, revealing a second soldier whose legs are visible below the arch at left.Cornelis, B. (2005). "Carel Fabritius. The Hague and Schwerin". ''The Burlington Magazine'', 147 (1223): 132–134. In 2005, the art historian Bart Cornelis wrote: "Although the painting looks brilliant after treatment, one cannot help feeling that part of its charm has gone, now that the splendid isolation of the soldier has been lost by the sudden appearance of another soldier .... Whoever overpainted this detail at such an early stage in the picture's history seemed to have understood that he could actually strengthen the composition." Art historian

Laura Cumming Laura Cumming is a British journalist who is the art critic of ''The Observer'' newspaper, a position she has held since 1999. Before that she worked for ''The Guardian'', the ''New Statesman'' and the BBC. In addition to her career in journal ...

writes, "''The Sentry'' is the most enigmatic of Fabritius's scant few works.... This is a public painting of inward emotion; a civic guard with a private mind.... He might be a deserter, outsider or anti-hero. Fabritius withholds his story, almost to the point of abstraction".Cumming, Laura (2023). ''Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life & Sudden Death''. New York: Scribner, pp. 159, 162.

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* 1654 paintings Paintings by Carel Fabritius Dogs in art {{1650s-painting-stub