European

David Teniers the Younger

Flanders 1610-1690
Allegory 25.0280

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In the tradition of Hieronymus Bosch, Teniers also painted witches and demons, and also a form of genre painting that substituted monkeys for human figures. This painted allegory of the Last Judgment includes all of these figures. The inscription on the millstone reads Het end dracht de Last ("The end bears the burden"). However, the inscription on the banner, De pinster blom, is more obscure. It may refer to a flower (blom) associated with Pentecost, which in German is translated pinkster. David Teniers was the son and father of painters of the same name. He married Anna Bruegel, the daughter of another prominent painting family, and became dean of the Guild of St. Luke's, Antwerp, in 1645. Teniers enjoyed the patronage of prominent church officials, and also of the newly appointed governor of the southern Netherlands, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, who made Teniers court painter in Brussels and curator of his painting collection. After Leopold Wilhelm left the southern Netherlands, Teniers remained as court painter to the new governor, Don Juan of Austria, whom he taught to draw and paint. Teniers later opened an art academy in Antwerp in 1665. An unusually prolific artist, Teniers enjoyed exceptional patronage and privilege, and along with Adriaen Brouwer, was an important 17th century Flemish painter of low-life genre scenes.

 

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