David Teniers the Younger Antwerp 1610 - 1690 Brussels

Possibly Marie-Caroline de Bourbon (1798-1870), Duchesse de Berry, Paris;
Possibly Her sale, from the Galerie of the Duc de Berry at the Palais de l'Elysée, Paris, Paillet, 4-6 April 1837, lot 11;
Inherited by the present owner in the 1960s.

The three boors are shown playing a game of hustle-cap. The game was a form of pitch-and-toss, in which coins were 'hustled' or shaken together in a cap before being tossed. The word 'hustle' comes from hutselen in middle Dutch, which quite literally meant 'to shake the money in the game of hustle-cap' . Modern Dutch retains the word husselen or hutselen meaning to shake or toss. The first die has already fallen on the table, and to judge from the expression on the player in this painting, this or the likely fall of the other dice is not particularly favourable.

The present work appears to be hitherto unrecorded and unpublished. It is not certain whether this is the version on panel in the sale of the Duc de Berry's collection in 1837 recorded by Smith (see Literature). The size accords with that given by Smith, but not with that in the sale catalogue of 10.8 by 6 pouces, although the description matches. Another smaller version of this composition, in which three players are similarly shown around a barrel, on panel but in oval format, is recorded in the William Harvey collection(Photograph Witt Library mount).

Marie-Caroline de Bourbon (1798-1870), the daughter of Francis II of Naples, married in 1816 Charles-Ferdinand, Duc de Berry (1778-1820), youngest son of the future Charles X of France. Although the Duchesse was a major patron of contemporary art and formed incomparable collections of pictures, furniture and porcelain, a cabinet picture such as this would undoubtedly have come from her husband who, before his assassination in 1820, formed an impressive collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings, housed in his gallery in the Elysée Palace. The Duchesse, who preferred modern paintings, left them there when she moved to the Pavillon de Marsan. The July Revolution of 1830 drove her into exile and her and her husband's collections were dispersed by sales or among her Austrian and Italian descendants.