David Teniers the Younger

Countess Howe;
Anonymous sale ('The Property of a Gentleman'), London, Phillips, 14 December 1999, lot 61.

The following condition report is provided by Alex France who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's: Structural Condition The two panels are very slightly bowed and are providing stable structural supports. "Peasants resting on a rocky path, a wooded landscape beyond" There is a very fine horizontal crack running in from the centre of the left edge with an associated tiny loss within the rock. Paint Surface The paint surfaces both have even varnish layers. "Peasants resting on a rocky path, a wooded landscape beyond" There is a very small spot of lifting paint above the trees in the upper right. Inspection under ultra-violet light shows extensive, carefully applied spots and lines of retouching throughout the sky, and a few tiny retouchings around the two figures in the lower left. "Peasants discoursing by a grotto in a rocky wooded landscape" Inspection under ultra-violet light shows extensive spots and lines of retouching within the sky, a small spot within the trees on the left of the rocks in the lower left quadrant and some further small spots within the pale rocks close to the lower part of the right edge. Summary The paintings would therefore appear to be in reasonably good condition and would benefit from the localised consolidation of a small area of lifting within "Peasants resting on a rocky path, a wooded landscape beyond" mentioned above.
"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."

This pair of landscapes depicts subjects which Teniers returned to time and again throughout his long career. Teniers’ rendering of rocky scenery and grottos is undoubtedly rooted in the tradition of figurative Flemish landscapes, stretching as far back as the work of Joachim Patinir in the sixteenth century. The increased naturalism of works such as these, however, show how far Teniers had come in his treatment of landscape from the tradition epitomised by the work of artists of the preceding generation, such as Joos de Momper and Paul Bril.

These paintings were most likely produced in the 1640s, when the colouring of Teniers’ scenes became more transparent and homogenous. Their naturalism owes much to Teniers’ practice of drawing directly from nature. From the 1630s onwards, Teniers made numerous drawings and preliminary studies, always in pencil, on excursions into the countryside around Antwerp. A drawing study of another grotto, for example, was used by Teniers for his St Peter in Penitence, today in the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London.¹ This reveals Teniers' characteristic precision in the working out of the details of the rock formations and the surrounding landscape, as well as the branches and leaves. Pure landscapes without figures are found only in Teniers’ drawings and, fascinatingly, it appears that habitually the artist may have added figures to his landscape paintings only after finding a purchaser for the grotto scenes themselves.² 

The present pair also illustrates Teniers’ interest in the changing effects of light and air within the scenery and the varying moods of different times of day. In the painting of peasants discoursing by a grotto, the effect of the sun beginning to pierce through a rather overcast sky is apparent in the particular highlights picked out on the ground and side of the grotto, while the slightly clearer sky in the other picture results in a gentler suffusion of light.

François de Bout, who became a Master in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1637–38, provided Teniers with numerous panel supports during his career.

The attribution to Teniers has been confirmed by Margaret Klinge following first hand inspection of the originals.

1. Courtauld Institute Gallery, London; see David Teniers the Younger. Paintings. Drawings, exhibition catalogue, Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, 1991, p. 43, under cat. no. 8A/8B, reproduced fig. 8a.

2. See Antwerp 1991, pp. 20 and 42.