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Lot Essay
This tapestry represents the right half of a design entitled Return from Harvest and forms part of the Teniers genre tapestries. Very few of the large number of tapestry designs that are known as Teniers can actually be traced back to works by David Teniers the Younger (d. 1690) who was court painter to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm. Records of the period indicate that it was painters such as Jacob van Helmont, Ignatius de Hondt, Theobald Michau and Jan van Orley that prepared the cartoons based on Teniers' themes.
The first mention of these genre tapestries is in 1693 when Jacob van der Borght and Jerôme le Clerc supplied a set to Prince Rupert of Bavaria. They rapidly became one of the most preferred subjects in tapestry design and were woven in nearly all of the main workshops of Brussels, Lille, Audenarde and also in Beauvais, London and Madrid until the mid-18th Century. Most workshops had their own designs commissioned from various painters; it is thus possible to ascribe certain figural compositions to specific workshops. This panel can be attributed to the brothers Peter (d. 1763) and Jan Frans (d. 1774) van der Borght on the basis of other signed versions. A very large number of Teniers tapestries were woven by them and examples by them are today in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Holyroodhouse, Petworth and Galleria Sabauda, Turin (see Delmarcel. G.: Flemish Tapestry, Tielt, 1999, pp. 352-363).
A tapestry of identical subject from the Lehmann Collection, but extending to the left side and depicting the farmer next to the door holding the door handle and in his other hand a hay fork, was sold at Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 5 June 1925, lot 138.
The first mention of these genre tapestries is in 1693 when Jacob van der Borght and Jerôme le Clerc supplied a set to Prince Rupert of Bavaria. They rapidly became one of the most preferred subjects in tapestry design and were woven in nearly all of the main workshops of Brussels, Lille, Audenarde and also in Beauvais, London and Madrid until the mid-18th Century. Most workshops had their own designs commissioned from various painters; it is thus possible to ascribe certain figural compositions to specific workshops. This panel can be attributed to the brothers Peter (d. 1763) and Jan Frans (d. 1774) van der Borght on the basis of other signed versions. A very large number of Teniers tapestries were woven by them and examples by them are today in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Holyroodhouse, Petworth and Galleria Sabauda, Turin (see Delmarcel. G.: Flemish Tapestry, Tielt, 1999, pp. 352-363).
A tapestry of identical subject from the Lehmann Collection, but extending to the left side and depicting the farmer next to the door holding the door handle and in his other hand a hay fork, was sold at Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 5 June 1925, lot 138.