AFTER DAVID TENIERS THE YOUNGER, LATE 17TH / EARLY 18TH CENTURY

This late 17th-early or 18th century Brussels tapestry is from a series known as Scenes of Country Life ‘after Teniers’. It is derived from a painting by David Teniers the Younger (d. 1690) entitled ‘Country Feast’, dated 1647, which is in the collection of the Prado Museum, Madrid (Inv. PO1786). Another version of this tapestry is in the Palacio Real de El Pardo, Madrid; the latter was based on a cartoon, now lost, created in the 18th century by Antonio González Ruiz for the Santa Bárbara Royal Tapestry Manufactory (Inv. 10072777, silk and wool, 298 x 400 cm.). A third variant of this scene was sold Sotheby’s, London, 26 May 1989, lot 29 (315 x 385 cm. - reduced). Similarly, to the present tapestry, the two comparable tapestries are not faithful reproductions of the painting but takes vignettes from the original artwork, most notably the wedding feast beneath a drapery canopy. Genre tapestries after Teniers were produced from the 17th to 19th centuries in different workshops, Lille, Audenarde and Beauvais, but especially in Brussels by, among others, the Van der Borcht and Leyniers families; thus, identification to a particular workshop or designer is difficult to determine (H. Smit, ‘New Data on the History of a Set of Scenes of Country Life ‘after Teniers’ in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam’, Flemish Tapestry in European and American Collections, Turnhout, 1953, p. 153). As depicted in other Teniers tapestries from this series and date, the original border for this tapestry was probably woven to depict a carved giltwood frame (E. Hartkamp-Jonxis, H. Smit, European Tapestries in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2004, pp. 155-165).