David Teniers the Younger

In the collection of the family of the present owners since the beginning of the 20th century.

The following condition report is provided by Hamish Dewar, who is an external expert and not an employee of Sotheby's. UNCONDITIONAL AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE Structural Condition The canvas has an old lining which is still providing a sound and secure structural support. Paint Surface The paint surface has a very discoloured and uneven varnish layer with the potential to be transformed should the painting be cleaned and revarnished. There are very small flecks of paint loss along the lower horizontal framing edge. Inspection under ultra-violet light confirms how discoloured the varnish layers have become and how much cleaning should transform the overall appearance due to the discoloured varnish layers. Inspection under ultra-violet light is inevitably inconclusive and there may well be retouchings underneath the varnish layers that do not fluoresce under ultra-violet light. The only retouchings that can be seen clearly under ultra-violet are: 1) along the lower horizontal framing edge with a few other spots and lines in the foreground, 2) a very small area on the left vertical framing edge and perhaps some retouching on the house on the right side of the composition near the right vertical framing edge. There are some very minor surface scratches and abrasions. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in very good and stable condition being apparently well preserved with little evidence of abrasion or over cleaning in the finer details.
"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 festivities take place in the courtyard of David Teniers' country residence, known as Dry Toren on account of the three towers seen here above the main residence to the left, two pointed and one octagonal surmounted by a weathervane. Very little of the house remains intact today and only the entrance gate, seen here at the extreme left, with its striking superstructure, has survived the centuries, albeit in slightly modified form ( fig. 1). Not far from Rubens' residence Steen at Elewijt, Teniers purchased Dry Toren in the neighbouring village of Perk from Hélène Fourment's second husband Jan-Baptist de Broeckhoven de Bergeyck, in 1662/63, thus providing  a terminus ante quem for the execution of this painting. Here he seems to have opened his doors to the local village. The festivities take place in the warm sunlight of the late afternoon, punctuated by the bright colours of the villagers' clothing. Most of the peasants are huddled in large groups happily consuming all that is on offer, but a small group of six merry adults dance to the music of the fiddler and the cellist as a local grandee and his family approach the action from the gatehouse.

This appears to be Teniers' only depiction of Dry Toren from within the courtyard, with all other known views of it taken from without. The large canvas in the Wellington Museum at Apsley House portrays the manor from a point the other side of the entrance gate, to include the façade here hidden from view.¹ The Wellington canvas shows the moat surrounding the compound, which in the present painting can just be made out through a gap to the right of the main house, just behind the fence. Beyond the moat is the tall hedge that marks the boundary of the formal gardens, the make-up of which are possibly hinted at in Spring, one of the Four Seasons on loan to the Noordbrabants Museum, 's-Hertogenbosch;² in that painting we see the house from the gardens themselves, and thus from the opposite side to the present painting, and while Spring's gardens are of course fabricated to suit the subject matter, it seems likely that they are at least in part based on Tenier's own at Dry Toren.

1.  See M. Klinge, David Teniers the Younger, exhibition catalogue, Antwerp 1991, pp. 248-49, no. 85, reproduced.
2.  Ibid., pp. 250-55, no. 86, Spring reproduced p. 251.