The Preaching of John the Baptist

David Teniers I trained in Italy from circa 1597 to 1605, where he came under the influence of the artists Adam Elsheimer, Hans Rottenhammer and Orazio Gentileschi. The three large figures at the lower left and right corners – an elderly man wearing eastern costume, a younger man in a finely embroidered suit adorned with a double-headed eagle, two seated young men and a man wearing a turban – may be allegorical representations of the five known continents – Asia, Europe, the Americas and Africa – thus signaling the spread of Christianity throughout the world.
This painting may be identical with a work of this subject commissioned of David Teniers I by Frans Soetens that is mentioned in a notarial record published by Duverger and Vlieghe detailing the resolution of a lawsuit between Jakob Marischael and the artist on 5 July 1625 (loc. cit.).
We are grateful to Dr. Christian Tico Seifert for endorsing the attribution following firsthand inspection of the painting.