Circle of David Teniers the Younger

Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 28 July 1976, lot 165, for £280.

B. van Haute, David III Ryckaert , A seventeenth-century Flemish painter of peasant scenes, Turnhout 1999, p. 177, cat. no. C55 (under incorrect attributions).

"The following condition report has been provided by Henry Gentle, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The oak panel is cradled. There are three horizontal splits running from the left hand side. There are additions along the top and right hand edges. The paint surface is stable. Discoloured restorations can be seen mostly in the background covering thinnesses to the paint layer here and on the figure standing in front of the fire. The paint layer is covered in a slightly discoloured varnish."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

The principal figure group in this work is based upon a composition by David Teniers the Younger (1610-1690) of circa 1640 and now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam,¹ which in turn was inspired by Adriaen Brouwer's Gambling soldiers in a tavern in the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich.²  With the present work the artist has combined elements of both compositions; the figures around the table are loosely borrowed from Teniers, while the stool to the right and the piece of wood, acting as a repoussoir device in the lower right corner, are taken from Brouwer's painting.

Teniers painted his version about 1640, shortly before the present work was painted in 1643.

1.  Inv. no. SK-C-300; see P.J.J. van Thiel et al., All the Paintings of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Amsterdam/ Maarsen 1976, p. 536, no. C300, reproduced.
2.  Inv. no. 242; see G. Knuttel, Adriaen Brouwer, The Hague 1962, p. 117, reproduced fig. 70.