Peasants in a Tavern

c. 1633

David Teniers the Younger

Artist, Flemish, 1610 - 1690

David Teniers the Younger

Attributed to

Three pale-skinned people gather around a wooden table in a dimly lit tavern as a fourth person urinates against a wall in a back room in this horizontal painting. The table is a square board resting on a broken barrel. All three men at the table have prominent, reddened noses set in wide faces, and they wear clothing and hats in tones of spruce blue, olive green, muted purple, gray, or brown. One man sits on the left side of the table, holding a glass of beer with both hands. He wears what might be a furry cap. His face is turned slightly toward us but he looks down and to our right. The other seated man is across from us. He grins widely as he hunches over one forearm and holds the neck of a lidded ceramic jug with his other hand. He has a long, chunky chin and stares out at us from under a prominent brow ridge. The third man here stands behind, holding up a white clay pipe. His mouth is open, his eyes slitted, possibly crossed, and he hunches down. One foot rests on a low wooden box, a foot warmer. Another white clay pipe and the broken bowl of a pipe sit on the table, and another pipe lies by the first man’s feet. Also across the floor are two pots and a stubby broom, the long handle of which lies against a table holding a brass candlestick. A wisp of smoke rises from the wick in the candle stub. A shelf hung on the wall near the upper left corner of the painting holds a glass vessel and perhaps a plate. Two wooden beams line the left edge of the composition, and a cloth is draped over a nail there. The floor and wall are nearly uniform taupe gray. A rectangular doorway opens into the next room, in the top right corner of the painting. There a man stands facing the wall with both hands down in front of his torso. A window is set high in the wall there and the timbered ceiling is visible. The artist signed the lower left corner the painting, “D Teniers f.” The first two digits of the date read “16.”

Media Options

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Artwork overview


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

George Augustus Henry Cavendish [1754-1834], Cambridge, England.[1] Robert Pflieger; his nephew, John Ely Pflieger [1931-2018], Washington, D.C.; gift (partial and promised) October 1991 with his wife, Donna Carlson Pflieger, to NGA; gift completed December 1991.
[1] Cavendish was known as Lord George Cavendish prior to 1831, when he became Baron Cavendish, 1st earl of Burlington.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1998

  • A Collector's Cabinet, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998, no. 55.

Bibliography

2005

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Flemish Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2005: 236-239, color repro.

2020

  • Libby, Alexandra. “From Personal Treasures to Public Gifts: The Flemish Painting Collection at the National Gallery of Art.” In America and the Art of Flanders: Collecting Paintings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and their Circles, edited by Esmée Quodbach. The Frick Collection Studies in the History of Art Collecting in America 5. University Park, 2020: 140.

Inscriptions

lower left: D Teniers f 16[44]; by unknown hand, across top reverse: N.3 [Anti?] Dining Room; by unknown hand, center reverse: No3 Anti / Dining Room / Lord George / Cavendish

Wikidata ID

Q20177123


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