The Artist as Seigneur: Chateaux and Their Proprietors in the Work of David Teniers II

Abstract

After a long period of neglect, David Teniers II has once more begun to command the attention of art historians.1 The obscurity in which Teniers's reputation has lain for much of this century contrasts markedly with the preeminent artistic and social position he enjoyed among Flemish painters in the generation following Rubens. Born in Antwerp in 1610, Teniers was both versatile and prolific, producing more than one thousand paintings in a career spanning nearly fifty years.2 These include examples in all genres, from devotional subjects to singeries, but the scenes of Netherlandish country life for which he is best known account for over half of his extensive oeuvre. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Teniers's works were in demand throughout Europe; and for more than a century after his death in 1690 they continued to be a source for painters, engravers, and tapestry designers, among whom the artist's name became a generic term for scenes of rustic life.3