Meissonier was born in Lyon and studied in Rome and Paris, where he became the leading painter of historical and military genre pieces. This meticulously painted scene depicting a card game between cavalrymen of the era of Louis XIII draws upon seventeenth-century Dutch paintings by such artists as Ter Borch and Teniers. The naïve attitude of the youthful new recruits on the right is contrasted with the predatory anticipation of the old soldiers on the left