2720 - Teniers the Younger

Teniers the Younger 1610 Antwerp – 1690 Brussels Peasant Drinking / Woman Smoking Each oil on copper, mounted on a hardboard panel Each monogrammed in the upper right: D.T. f. Each framed Height: 12 cm each; Width: 9.5 cm H. H. Cevat Art Gallery, Lausanne, 1960; private collection, Switzerland These paintings are registered with the RKD, The Hague (Archive No. 58618). David Teniers II is considered one of the most important Flemish genre painters of the 17th century. After completing his training in Antwerp, he was admitted to the Guild of St. Luke there in 1632/33. Influenced by Adriaen Brouwers, Teniers developed a distinctive and highly regarded visual language depicting rural daily life, which brought him great success and, beginning in 1651, a position as court painter to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in Brussels. The two small-format paintings capture a fleeting moment: on the left, a woman in a three-quarter profile turns to the right and is just about to light a slender, light-colored clay pipe. Her ochre-colored dress with a white underskirt stands out against the dark background, while her face is partially in shadow, lending the scene a mysterious, introspective mood. Across from her sits a man wearing a large hat and a dark blue-gray outer garment, looking down toward the lower left. In his hands he holds a large jug and a glass, presumably containing wine. Like the woman, he, too, emerges from the darkness, with the light accentuating individual facial features and objects. The identical format of the two works and the way the figures face each other suggest that they were created as pairs. With their rural subject matter, they offer a quiet yet lively glimpse into everyday social life, as is characteristic of Dutch-Flemish genre painting. Auction Date: November 28, 2026 Approximate Auction Time: 10:06 a.m. CET