Man en vrouw met een kind voor een boerderij

David Teniers (II), ca. 1650 - ca. 1655

Opvallend in dit schilderij is een klein stilleven van pannen, kruiken en groenten. Bijzonder zijn de artisjokken, op de ton naast de groene kolen, die afkomstig waren uit het Mediterrane gebied. Vanaf eind 16de eeuw werd de artisjok geïntroduceerd in Noord-Europa. Zowel de wortelen, kolen als artisjokken werden in de herfst geoogst.

  • Soort kunstwerkschilderij
  • ObjectnummerSK-C-299
  • Afmetingendrager: hoogte 63,8 cm x breedte 93,5 cm x dikte 4,3 cm (drager incl. achterkantbescherming), buitenmaat: diepte 6,9 cm (drager incl. SK-L-2170)
  • Fysieke kenmerkenolieverf op doek

David Teniers (II)

Husbandman at a Cottage Door with a Seated Woman and Child

c. 1650 - c. 1655

Inscriptions

  • signature, bottom right:·D·TENIERS·FEC

Scientific examination and reports

  • technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 13 oktober 2006

Conservation

  • H.H. Mertens, 1967: Roggemeel doek verwijderd en roggemeel uitge... (?)

Provenance

…; collection Gerret Braamcamp (1699-1771), Amsterdam (‘Een Buitenhuis en Landschap meet beelden, door denzelven [David Teniers] h. 2 v. 2 en een half d. br. 3 v. 3 d. [in the frame, 64.2 x 94.1 cm] D.’);1‘Catalogus van Schilderyen; In het Kabinet van den Heere Gerard Braamkamp in Amsterdam’, in G. Hoet, Catalogus of Naamlyst van Schilderyen, met derzelver Pryzen Zedert een langen reeks van Jaaren zoo in Holland als op andere Plaatzen in het openbaar verkogt. Benevens een Verzamelingvan Lysten van Verscheyden nog in wezen zynde Cabinetten, 3 vols., The Hague 1752-70, II, p. 509. More fully described in 1766: ‘Premier Chambre à droite [in Heerengracht, no. 462] David Teniers Peint sur toile; haut 25 pouces & large de 36 [67.5 x 97.2 cm] Le Fond du Tableau est un superbe Paysage, sur le devant duquel est une chaumiere de Paysan, devant laquelle est une Paysanne assise qui tient sur ses genoux un enfant. Un Jardinier, qui lui a apporté des herbages qui sont à ses côtés, semble lui parler, avant de retourner aux champs. Le devant du Tableau est orné de diverses cruches & cassetieres & autres ustenciles.’ See Jean-Francois De Bastide, Le Temple des arts ou le cabinet de M. Braamcamp, 1766 (cited in C. Bille, De Tempel der Kunst. Of, het kabinet van den Heer Braamcamp, 2 vols., Amsterdam 1961, II, p. 53). his sale, Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 31 July 1771, no. 219 (‘Teniers, (David) H. 25, br. 36 d. [65.4 x 94.1 cm] Een heerlyk Landschap; op den Voorgrond die met kruiken, vaatwerk, ketels en ander gereedschap gestoffeerd is, staat een Boeren wooning, waar voor eene Boerin met een kind op den schoot; zy schynt met een Tuynman, die een spade in de hand heeft, te spreecken, die haar eenige Groenten gebracgt heeft, en welke rondom haar liggen. In ’t verschiet ziet men Gebergten, een Dorp en verschiede Passagiers’), fl. 2,100, to Diodati;2Prijzen der Schilderijen, Teeckeningen … etc. den Heer Braamcamp, 31 July 1771.…; ? the dealer Albertus Brondgeest; from whom, fl. 3,381, to Adriaan van der Hoop, Amsterdam (1778-1854), 1834;3Van der Hoop Lijst, p. 8, no. 96: ‘Een Landschap door Teniers, uit London overgekomen, en door my gekocht van A Brondgeest, fl. 3,381’. by whom bequeathed to the City of Amsterdam with 223 other paintings, 1854;4Van der Hoop Taxatie 1854, p. 1, no. 96: ‘Landschap met boerenwoning […] fl. 2500’. on loan from the City of Amsterdam to the museum since 30 June 1885; on loan to the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, 2004-115Provenance also reconstructed in A. Pollmer-Schmidt, ‘Catalogus van de schilderijen in de verzameling van Adriaan van der Hoop’, in E. Bergvelt et al. (eds.), De Hollandse meesters van een Amsterdamse bankier. De verzameling van Adriaan van der Hoop (1778-1854), exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum/Rijksmuseum) 2004-05, pp. 135-195, esp. p. 179, no. 182.

Object number: SK-C-299

Credit line: On loan from the City of Amsterdam (A. van der Hoop Bequest)


The artist

Biography

David Teniers II (Antwerp 1610 - Brussels 1690)

The prolific, highly successful small-scale figure and landscape painter David Teniers II was the eldest son of the artist David Teniers I and Dymphna de Wilde; he was baptized in the Sint-Jacobskerk, Antwerp, on 15 December 1610. Taught by his father, he became a master in the Antwerp guild of St Luke in 1632/33.6P. Rombouts and T. van Lerius, De Liggeren en andere historische archieven der Antwerpsche Sint Lucasgilde, ondere zinspreuk: ‘Wt Ionsten Versaemt’, 2 vols., Antwerp/The Hague 1864-76 (reprint Amsterdam 1961), II, p. 35. His first, extant signed and dated picture is of 1633 in which year he took on the first of his four Antwerp apprentices. On 22 June 1637 he married Anna Brueghel (1620-1656), the daughter of Jan Brueghel I (1568-1625), in a ceremony at which Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) was a witness; she brought property and wealth to the marriage. He was appointed dean of the guild of St Luke for the year 1645/46.

The following years saw his first contacts with the important collectors, Antoon Triest, Bishop of Ghent, and still more significantly, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, the governor of the Spanish Netherlands, whose court painter he became in 1651. Teniers settled in Brussels, and by 1657 was further appointed ‘ayuda da camera’ at the archducal court; his duties consisted in advising on the great range of artistic purchases made by the archduke particularly from the sales of the collections of the executed King Charles I of Great Britain and of the duke of Hamilton (1606-1644). He was sent to England by the count of Fuensaldaña (1603-1661) for this purpose between 1651 and 1655.7A. Vergara, ‘The Count of Fuensaldaña and David Teniers: Their Purchases in London after the Civil War’, The Burlington Magazine 131 (1989), pp. 127-32, esp. p. 128. For the archduke he also painted capriccio views of the display of his picture collection and prepared an etched catalogue of his Italian paintings, the Theatrum Pictorium, published in 1660. In 1656 following the death of his wife, he married Isabella de Fren. In the same year, his position as court painter to Leopold Wilhelm’s successor was confirmed; but it lapsed in 1659 under the next incumbent, with whom, however, Teniers was on friendly terms.

By 1662 he had bought the estate of Perk and the country house Dry Toren, not far from Het Steen – the property which Rubens had bought in 1635 – from Helena Fourment’s second husband, Jan-Baptist van Brouchoven van Bergeyck. Teniers was instrumental in obtaining from King Philip IV of Spain the charter to found a painters’ academy in Antwerp which was granted in 1663. He continued to work and sell paintings from his house in Brussels, in spite of objections from the Brussels guild of St Luke. In 1663 he was granted the noble status he had greatly desired. But his art was to become less popular and out of fashion, and his last years were marred by financial disputes with the children of his first marriage, so that he died in poverty. He was buried probably on 25 April 1690 in Brussels; his place of burial is not known.

REFERENCES
Klinge in M. Klinge and D. Lüdke (eds.), David Teniers der Jüngere 1610-1690: Alltag und Vergnügen in Flandern, exh. cat. Karlsruhe (Staatlichen Kunsthalle Karlsruhe) 2005-06, pp. 14-19; H. Vlieghe, David Teniers (1610-1690): A Biography, Turnhout 2011


Entry

There is no reason to doubt the authenticity of this signed work which has been dated by Klinge to the first half of the 1650s.8M. Klinge, David Teniers de Jonge. Schilderijen, tekeningen, exh. cat. Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten) 1991, no. 66. The window panes were rendered using the sgraffito technique.

The gathering in this rustic scene is unusually enigmatic and its intended meaning remains unclear. The Braamcamp catalogue describes the man as a gardener who had brought the peasant woman vegetables. The 1976 collection catalogue described the pair as a peasant and his wife and child. For Klinge the scene depicted a prosperous farmer and his family. Certainly the protagonists have a refined air despite the humble setting, and the child wears a valhoed,9See De Poorter in S.J. Barnes, N. de Poorter, O. Millar and H. Vey, Anthony van Dyck: A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, New Haven (Conn.)/London 2004, under nos. 1.103, 1.151. typical protective headgear worn by the children of well-to-do families; the same model for the mother appears in the foreground of the State Hermitage Museum Peasant Wedding of 1650.10M. Klinge, David Teniers de Jonge. Schilderijen, tekeningen, exh. cat. Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten) 1991, no. 66. The possibility arises that she was intended as a wet nurse.

Klinge correctly viewed the scene as one of ‘rural fecundity and abundance’; her claim that it ‘stressed the positive strength of the peasantry on whom hope for the economic welfare of the people must depend’,11M. Klinge, David Teniers de Jonge. Schilderijen, tekeningen, exh. cat. Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunstens) 1991, under no. 80. is perhaps overambitious. The nostalgic tone of Virgil’s Georgics could perhaps be better associated with it, especially the passage in which the life of the ‘happy husbandman’ is extolled: ‘O happy husbandman! Too happy, should they come to know their blessings! For whom, far from the clash of arms, most righteous Earth, unbidden, pours forth from her soil an easy sustenance … Theirs is repose without care, and a life that knows no fraud but is rich in treasures manifold … Among them, as she quitted the earth, Justice planted her latest steps.’12Virgil, translated by H. Rushton Fairclough, Loeb Classical Library, 2 vols. (ed. princ. 1916-18, reprint London 1928-30), I, p. 149; extract from Georgics II: 458-474.

The arrangement of household goods and vegetables stems from Teniers’s earliest activity.13M. Klinge and D. Lüdke (eds.), David Teniers der Jüngere 1610-1690: Alltag und Vergnügen in Flandern, exh. cat. Karlsruhe (Staatlichen Kunsthalle Karlsruhe) 2005-06, no. 5. The vegetables are all autumnal root crops. The object hanging from the fence post is a portable cage to house a decoy owl. Klinge believed that the spade was an attribute of Hope; but it is better regarded as an attribute of Labour.14As Elizabeth McGrath observed (private communication).

Gregory Martin, 2022


Literature

M. Klinge, David Teniers de Jonge. Schilderijen, tekeningen, exh. cat. Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten) 1991, no. 80


Collection catalogues

1885, p. 107, no. 212; 1887, p. 165, no. 1409; 1903, p. 259, no. 2297; 1934, p. 277, no. 2297; 1976, p. 536, no. C 299


Citation

G. Martin, 2022, 'David (II) Teniers, Husbandman at a Cottage Door with a Seated Woman and Child, c. 1650 - c. 1655', in Flemish Paintings in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20026399

(accessed 8 December 2025 20:35:47).

Footnotes

  • 1‘Catalogus van Schilderyen; In het Kabinet van den Heere Gerard Braamkamp in Amsterdam’, in G. Hoet, Catalogus of Naamlyst van Schilderyen, met derzelver Pryzen Zedert een langen reeks van Jaaren zoo in Holland als op andere Plaatzen in het openbaar verkogt. Benevens een Verzamelingvan Lysten van Verscheyden nog in wezen zynde Cabinetten, 3 vols., The Hague 1752-70, II, p. 509. More fully described in 1766: ‘Premier Chambre à droite [in Heerengracht, no. 462] David Teniers Peint sur toile; haut 25 pouces & large de 36 [67.5 x 97.2 cm] Le Fond du Tableau est un superbe Paysage, sur le devant duquel est une chaumiere de Paysan, devant laquelle est une Paysanne assise qui tient sur ses genoux un enfant. Un Jardinier, qui lui a apporté des herbages qui sont à ses côtés, semble lui parler, avant de retourner aux champs. Le devant du Tableau est orné de diverses cruches & cassetieres & autres ustenciles.’ See Jean-Francois De Bastide, Le Temple des arts ou le cabinet de M. Braamcamp, 1766 (cited in C. Bille, De Tempel der Kunst. Of, het kabinet van den Heer Braamcamp, 2 vols., Amsterdam 1961, II, p. 53).
  • 2Prijzen der Schilderijen, Teeckeningen … etc. den Heer Braamcamp, 31 July 1771.
  • 3Van der Hoop Lijst, p. 8, no. 96: ‘Een Landschap door Teniers, uit London overgekomen, en door my gekocht van A Brondgeest, fl. 3,381’.
  • 4Van der Hoop Taxatie 1854, p. 1, no. 96: ‘Landschap met boerenwoning […] fl. 2500’.
  • 5Provenance also reconstructed in A. Pollmer-Schmidt, ‘Catalogus van de schilderijen in de verzameling van Adriaan van der Hoop’, in E. Bergvelt et al. (eds.), De Hollandse meesters van een Amsterdamse bankier. De verzameling van Adriaan van der Hoop (1778-1854), exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum/Rijksmuseum) 2004-05, pp. 135-195, esp. p. 179, no. 182.
  • 6P. Rombouts and T. van Lerius, De Liggeren en andere historische archieven der Antwerpsche Sint Lucasgilde, ondere zinspreuk: ‘Wt Ionsten Versaemt’, 2 vols., Antwerp/The Hague 1864-76 (reprint Amsterdam 1961), II, p. 35.
  • 7A. Vergara, ‘The Count of Fuensaldaña and David Teniers: Their Purchases in London after the Civil War’, The Burlington Magazine 131 (1989), pp. 127-32, esp. p. 128.
  • 8M. Klinge, David Teniers de Jonge. Schilderijen, tekeningen, exh. cat. Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten) 1991, no. 66.
  • 9See De Poorter in S.J. Barnes, N. de Poorter, O. Millar and H. Vey, Anthony van Dyck: A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, New Haven (Conn.)/London 2004, under nos. 1.103, 1.151.
  • 10M. Klinge, David Teniers de Jonge. Schilderijen, tekeningen, exh. cat. Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten) 1991, no. 66.
  • 11M. Klinge, David Teniers de Jonge. Schilderijen, tekeningen, exh. cat. Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunstens) 1991, under no. 80.
  • 12Virgil, translated by H. Rushton Fairclough, Loeb Classical Library, 2 vols. (ed. princ. 1916-18, reprint London 1928-30), I, p. 149; extract from Georgics II: 458-474.
  • 13M. Klinge and D. Lüdke (eds.), David Teniers der Jüngere 1610-1690: Alltag und Vergnügen in Flandern, exh. cat. Karlsruhe (Staatlichen Kunsthalle Karlsruhe) 2005-06, no. 5.
  • 14As Elizabeth McGrath observed (private communication).