Teniers, David d.J. (II)

Description:

Antwerpen 1610 - Brüssel 1690
26,5 x 23,5 cm
The Scissors Grinder. Oil/panel, signed DT F. lower left.
Ferdinand III Mülhens Collection, Cologne.
Court painter and gallery director, son-in-law of the elder Jan Breughel, Peter Paul Rubens his best man, - already during his lifetime David Teniers the Younger was a highly respected personality, as a citizen of Antwerp and Brussels, as curator of the collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria and of course as an artist, as a painter and draftsman. His rural genre pieces, tavern scenes, village fairs and peasant dances are finely seen everyday observations garnished with hearty humor. Most of them are excellently composed multi-figure depictions in peasant taverns, barns, on village squares and in the open countryside. Rarely do such small panels appear, like our scissors grinder... almost a "trade portrait", but what is actually fascinating is again the clever, slightly mocking characterization of this obviously simple man, a rustic type, vacillating between canny and coarse, the face pointed with a fine red bulbous nose.
Comparative literature:
Exhibition catalogue David Teniers de Jonge, Margret Klinge, Antwerp 1991.