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拍品專文
David Teniers the Younger's characterful allegories illustrate not only the four seasons made human, but their parallels with the realities of rural life. Under the influence of Adriaen Brouwer, Teniers grew to be amongst the most celebrated painters of everyday life, building on Brouwer’s rustic and rowdy tavern scenes to develop a brighter, more nuanced view of rural existence.
There was strong contemporary demand for allegorical representations of the seasons, to which Teniers evidently responded with vigour. Rather than direct repetitions, however, each allegory exists in a number of variations with their principal characters differing in number and pose, against varying backgrounds. The demand endured well beyond the artist’s lifetime, perhaps most notably in France where his work had long been greatly prized, and his small, playful cabinet pictures were much sought-after. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century inventories and auction catalogues trace sets of Teniers’s Seasons changing hands between some of the most distinguished collectors of the age, including Prince Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand and Jeanne-Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes, Comtesse de Verrue. A set belonging to the prominent Parisian dealer and collector Gilbert-Antoine Ligier de la Prade was engraved by Jean-Charles Le Vasseur. Le Vasseur's prints pair each allegory with humorous verses that hint at the messaging behind the imagery, including the harsh realities of old age.
Just two other sets of The Four Seasons by Teniers are known to remain intact today. The paintings belonging to Prince Talleyrand are preserved in the National Gallery, London (inv. nos. 857-860), dated to circa 1644 and similarly signed with the artist’s monogram. They are slightly larger than the present works and are painted on copper, rather than panel. A second set on panel was sold at Christie’s in Amsterdam on 20 November 2012, lot 26.
The provenances for the various sets of The Four Seasons have inevitably become conflated and confused over time, not least because descriptions in inventories and catalogues offer varying degrees of detail. In his reference to the National Gallery paintings, then in the collection of Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Bt., John Smith listed no fewer than nine collectors in the provenance, only four of whom are now linked to that set (see A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters, III, London, 1831, p. 274, no. 48).
It is known that one such set was owned by the celebrated Parisian connoisseur Augustin Blondel de Gagny (1695-1776), who was appointed in 1749 to the lucrative post of treasurer of the royal debt fund (Caisse des Amortissements), a position that gave him the means to assemble a storied collection of exceptional paintings, sculpture and decorative arts. Housed at the Hôtel de Gramont at 15 Place Vendôme from 1758 onwards, and described at length in Hébert’s 1766 Parisian guidebook, Dictionnaire pittoresque et historique, the collection was eventually sold on the premises following Blondel’s death. The sale included no fewer than twenty-two lots given to Teniers, and a detailed description in the catalogue strongly suggests the set of The Four Seasons that appeared as lot 98 should be identified with the present works. Most significantly, it describes Summer as including two figures rather than one, a man and a woman holding sheaves of wheat, which is inconsistent with both the National Gallery set and that sold at Christie’s in 2012, and with all extant engravings after the subject. The paintings were bought by ‘de Roy’ on behalf of ‘milord Stormond’, which in all likelihood refers to the British diplomat and politician David Murray, 7th Viscount Stormont and later 2nd Earl of Mansfield (1727-1796), who at the time of the sale was living in Paris as George III’s Ambassador to France.
There was strong contemporary demand for allegorical representations of the seasons, to which Teniers evidently responded with vigour. Rather than direct repetitions, however, each allegory exists in a number of variations with their principal characters differing in number and pose, against varying backgrounds. The demand endured well beyond the artist’s lifetime, perhaps most notably in France where his work had long been greatly prized, and his small, playful cabinet pictures were much sought-after. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century inventories and auction catalogues trace sets of Teniers’s Seasons changing hands between some of the most distinguished collectors of the age, including Prince Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand and Jeanne-Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes, Comtesse de Verrue. A set belonging to the prominent Parisian dealer and collector Gilbert-Antoine Ligier de la Prade was engraved by Jean-Charles Le Vasseur. Le Vasseur's prints pair each allegory with humorous verses that hint at the messaging behind the imagery, including the harsh realities of old age.
Just two other sets of The Four Seasons by Teniers are known to remain intact today. The paintings belonging to Prince Talleyrand are preserved in the National Gallery, London (inv. nos. 857-860), dated to circa 1644 and similarly signed with the artist’s monogram. They are slightly larger than the present works and are painted on copper, rather than panel. A second set on panel was sold at Christie’s in Amsterdam on 20 November 2012, lot 26.
The provenances for the various sets of The Four Seasons have inevitably become conflated and confused over time, not least because descriptions in inventories and catalogues offer varying degrees of detail. In his reference to the National Gallery paintings, then in the collection of Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Bt., John Smith listed no fewer than nine collectors in the provenance, only four of whom are now linked to that set (see A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters, III, London, 1831, p. 274, no. 48).
It is known that one such set was owned by the celebrated Parisian connoisseur Augustin Blondel de Gagny (1695-1776), who was appointed in 1749 to the lucrative post of treasurer of the royal debt fund (Caisse des Amortissements), a position that gave him the means to assemble a storied collection of exceptional paintings, sculpture and decorative arts. Housed at the Hôtel de Gramont at 15 Place Vendôme from 1758 onwards, and described at length in Hébert’s 1766 Parisian guidebook, Dictionnaire pittoresque et historique, the collection was eventually sold on the premises following Blondel’s death. The sale included no fewer than twenty-two lots given to Teniers, and a detailed description in the catalogue strongly suggests the set of The Four Seasons that appeared as lot 98 should be identified with the present works. Most significantly, it describes Summer as including two figures rather than one, a man and a woman holding sheaves of wheat, which is inconsistent with both the National Gallery set and that sold at Christie’s in 2012, and with all extant engravings after the subject. The paintings were bought by ‘de Roy’ on behalf of ‘milord Stormond’, which in all likelihood refers to the British diplomat and politician David Murray, 7th Viscount Stormont and later 2nd Earl of Mansfield (1727-1796), who at the time of the sale was living in Paris as George III’s Ambassador to France.