David Teniers the Younger, 'An Old Peasant caresses a Kitchen Maid in a Stable', about 1650

An Old Peasant caresses a Kitchen Maid in a Stable

David Teniers the Younger

Not on display

About the work

Overview

David Teniers the Younger made his fortune painting bawdy scenes like this one. They were popular with wealthy collectors who were proud of their own good manners compared with those ascribed to peasants (they also found the pictures amusing).

In-depth

In this painting, Teniers has created screened entrances and exits for the characters in his story, like a stage set. A short wall protrudes into the space on one side, an open door on the other, with an enormous butter churn and an unlit stove flat against the wall like a painted backcloth. He has dressed the foreground with an unlikely amount of large kitchen utensils, ingeniously arranged on either side like the painted wings in a theatre. They engage the eye but also demonstrate Teniers’s skill in painting textures. A metal and glass lantern sits close to an enormous earthenware pot and a draped piece of cloth while, on the other side of the picture, a besom broom leans against a heavy wooden table with a slipware jug on it. The jug glints with the reflection of an unseen window.

The unfortunate young woman on her knees has lost a shoe – perhaps in her efforts to scour yet another pot, but more likely startled by the unwelcome advances of the old man. This painting may be a slice of life, but it could also derive from the comic stock characters performed by companies of Italian travelling players, the commedia dell‘arte. The peasant in Teniers’ picture resembles the character Pantalone, or Pantaloon, a stupid old man with a bulbous nose and white beard. But the jaunty feather in his cap here suggests he is crafty enough to take advantage of any situation, especially one involving a woman. He sits with his legs apart, his breeches open – but empty – at the crotch, suggesting that he’s all talk and no action (a common joke in the commedia dell’arte). The comic old women were often played by male actors bundled up in female garments, but in these genre paintings they are simply made grotesque. In this picture, the eyes of the old woman peeking round the door aren’t on the old man, as might be expected. She beckons to the cat, likely to be a symbol of lasciviousness. The suggestion appears to be that if the cat obeys and runs to her, the old man will do likewise.

David Teniers made his fortune painting bawdy scenes like this one. They were popular with wealthy collectors, who were proud of their own good manners compared with those ascribed to peasants, but found the pictures amusing too. He was influenced by Adriaen Brouwer, who also painted such scenes (but far more bawdy than Teniers’ own – for example, Tavern Scene). Another painting in the National Gallery’s collection, A View of a Village with Three Peasants talking in the Foreground, appears to draw on the commedia dell’arte, while A Man holding a Glass and an Old Woman lighting a Pipe is another kitchen scene.

Key facts

Details

Full title: An Old Peasant caresses a Kitchen Maid in a Stable
Artist: David Teniers the Younger
Artist dates: 1610 - 1690
Date made: about 1650
Medium and support: oil on wood
Dimensions: 43.2 × 64.9 cm
Inscription summary: Signed
Acquisition credit: Bought, 1871
Inventory number: NG862
Location: Not on display
Collection: Main Collection
Previous owners: Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Bt

Provenance

Coll. Landgraf Wilhelm VIII (1682–1760) of Hesse at Cassel by 1749; looted from Cassel by General Lagrange and taken to Mainz, October, 1806. Given by Napoleon to the Empress Joséphine († 1814), and perhaps recorded at Malmaison, 1811. Varoc ( = Lafontaine) sale, Lebrun (Paris), 28 May–2 June, 1821 (86) 4,000 francs bt. in; Varoc ( = Lafontaine) sale, Phillips, 22 March, 1822 (85) bt. by the Rt. Hon. Robert Peel (later Sir Robert Peel, Bart.) for £200; exh. B.I. 1822 (89); purchased with the Peel collection 1871; lent, through the Arts Council, to Leeds City Art Gallery, 1958–63.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Gregory Martin, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Flemish School: circa 1600–circa 1900’, London 1986; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Bibliography

1783

S. Causid, Verzeichniss der Hochfürstlich-Hessischen Gemählde Sammlung in Cassel, Kassel 1783
1830

J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters: In Which is Included a Short Biographical Notice of the Artists, with a Copious Description of Their Principal Pictures […], vol. 2, London 1830
1854

G.F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being and Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss. […], vol. 2, trans. E. Eastlake, London 1854
1867

M.F.A. de Lescure, Le château de la Malmaison: Histoire, description, catalogue des objets exposés, Paris 1867
1917

G. Gronau, 'Die Verluste der Lander Galerie in der Zeit der französischen Okkupation 1806-1813', Internationale Monatsschrift für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Technik, 1917
1964

W. von Both and H. Vogel, Landgraf Wilhelm VIII Von Hessen-Kassel, Munich 1964
1970

G. Martin, The Flemish School, circa 1600-circa 1900, London 1970
1975

M. Díaz Padrón, Museo del Prado, catálogo de pinturas, escuela flamenca, siglo XVII, Madrid 1975
1986

Martin, Gregory, National Gallery Catalogues: The Flemish School, circa 1600 - circa 1900, London 1986
1991

M. Klinge, David Teniers de Jonge: Schilderijen, tekeningen (exh. cat. Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, 11 May - 1 September 1991), Ghent 1991
1991

J. Becker, 'Are These Girls Really So Neat? On Kitchen Scenes and Method', in D. Freedberg (ed.), Art in History, History in Art: Studies in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Culture, Santa Monica 1991, pp. 139-173
1993

A. Pougetoux, 'La collection de l'impératrice Joséphine: Histoire mouvementée (et peu morale) de quelques chefs-d'oeuvre', in L'Age d'or flamand et hollandais: Collections de Catherine II, Musée de l'Ermitage, Saint-Petersbourg, Paris 1993, pp. 72-9
1994

D. Teniers, David Teniers d.J: 1610-1690, ed. P. Tiegel-Hertfelder, Kassel 1994
1995

M. Díaz Padrón, El siglo de Rubens en el Museo del Prado: Catálogo razonado de pintura flamenca del siglo XVII, Madrid 1995
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
2008

M. Eissenhauer, König Lustik!?: Jérôme Bonaparte und der Modellstaat Königreich Westphalen (exh. cat. Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel im Museum Fridericianum, 19 March - 29 June 2008), Kassel 2008

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

Images

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A Cottage by a River with a Distant View of a Castle

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While many of Teniers’ paintings show an invented landscape, this view perhaps shows a castle in the distance that may one day be identified. Judging by the new shoots on the trees between the cottage and the river, this is a spring scene. But Teniers was never content with showing a pleasant vie...

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A Man holding a Glass and an Old Woman lighting a Pipe

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David Teniers the Younger was one of the most successful Flemish painters of the seventeenth century. His work was prized by important collectors, and he amassed great wealth and attained high status himself: he was awarded a patent of nobility in 1680. At this time there was a fashion for pictur...

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A View of a Village

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David Teniers painted caricatures in imaginary landscapes, a background to his comic characters. Here, three men stand facing each other in a circle. One reaches into an inner pocket and looks with a shifty half-smile at the man in the blue coat, whose straight back hints at a military background...

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A View of Het Sterckshof near Antwerp

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David Teniers seldom painted identifiable buildings, but in this case the large house partially hidden by trees has been identified as Het Sterckshof near Antwerp. It belonged to Jacob Edelheer, who was city secretary as well as a collector of artworks and scientific instruments.The figures on th...

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Autumn

David Teniers the Younger

A wine drinker – a stout fellow with a handsome moustache – represents Autumn in a series of paintings by David Teniers that gives each season a human form. A white sash cradles a comfortable belly, and stretched over it is a wine-coloured jacket. His fat neck disappears into the collar of his ja...

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Christ Crowned with Thorns

David Teniers the Younger

In a guardroom that looks more like a Flemish tavern than a prison, a crown of thorns is being placed on Christ’s head. This humiliating moment, recounted in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and John, was one of a number of such episodes in the lead-up to Christ’s crucifixion. Here, the henchmen wear...

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Peasants at Archery

David Teniers the Younger

A towering rain cloud seems to threaten an early close to this game of archery. Perhaps the storm will come as a relief – although the archer takes aim with an eager eye, only one of the three arrows already shot has hit the target. The game seems almost incidental, however: Teniers is here telli...

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Peasants merry-making before a Country House

Lucas van Uden and David Teniers the Younger

This grand country house has been identified as Kasteel d’Ursel in Hingene on the border between the old Duchy of Brabant and the County of Flanders. It was the private summer residence of the Duke of Ursel, a powerful aristocrat from nearby Antwerp and it still exists, though it has changed sig...

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Peasants playing Bowls outside a Village Inn

David Teniers the Younger

Teniers’s imaginary landscape shows peasants at their leisure. The sheep on the far side of the river enjoy the best of the fitful sunshine, but with a few strokes of the brush Teniers created a shower of rain over the substantial village and the church in the distance.The men in the foreground p...

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Spring

David Teniers the Younger

This is the first of a series of paintings by David Teniers in which the four seasons are given human form. Here, Spring is personified as a young gardener with a bushy beard, heaving a heavy pot containing a sapling. His step is jaunty and he has a gleam in his eye. His jacket looks new, and his...

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Summer

David Teniers the Younger

A young peasant – beardless and red-cheeked, with curly hair and a dreamy look in his eye – represents Summer in the second of Teniers' allegorical paintings of the seasons. Behind him the trees are in full leaf and the distance is hazy with heat; above, the clouds are light and puffy.The youth s...

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The Covetous Man

David Teniers the Younger

In one of his parables, Christ told of a rich man who squirrelled away his grain and his goods, hoarding them to ensure his future comfort instead of using them for charitable deeds. But God commanded that the man’s time to die had come: ‘Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee:...

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The Rich Man being led to Hell

David Teniers the Younger

The fires of hell light up Teniers’s cave-like underworld with an eerie glow. An old man stands, hands raised in self-defence, his eyes wide with fear at the sight of the horrors around him. Weird creatures gather in glee to welcome another soul into the dreadful place that his greed and avarice...

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Two Men playing Cards in the Kitchen of an Inn

David Teniers the Younger

Two bearded old men sit at a small table playing cards. What little light there is focuses on the white cap of one and the grey hair of the other, as well as their white collars, and reveals them to be better dressed than some other patrons of the inn. In the dingy back room, a young woman sits b...

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Winter

David Teniers the Younger

Teniers brings the cycle of the seasons full circle – and his series of paintings of the seasons to an end – with an old man representing Winter. Wrapped in velvet and fur, he hunches over to warm his hands at a brazier. His face is lined and wrinkled, his beard long and frosted with white. But h...

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A Gipsy Fortune Teller in a Hilly Landscape

Probably by David Teniers the Younger

Pictures of mysterious characters dressed in exotic clothing against a background of dangerously steep mountains and distant castles were very popular in seventeenth-century Flanders. The idea of the romantic wanderer caught the imagination, and inspired attractive narrative paintings that were o...

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Backgammon Players

Probably by David Teniers the Younger

Backgammon (triktrak in Dutch) was a highly popular board game in seventeenth-century Flanders, especially in taverns and drinking dens, where players would bet on the outcome. The white cube we see in the centre of the board is probably a doubling die, used to up the stakes. Gambling of this kin...

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An Old Woman peeling Pears

Follower of David Teniers the Younger

Structurally and thematically, this picture is similar to one of Teniers’s best-known paintings, Kitchen Interior (Mauritshuis, The Hague), which shows a seated woman peeling apples in a cavernous kitchen with a still life of fruit, pots and a panoply of dead game to her right and a dog to her le...

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A Doctor tending a Patient's Foot in his Surgery

Imitator of David Teniers the Younger

An assistant prepares a plaster at the table while the doctor treats a patient’s foot. This composition is derived from works by Adriaen Brouwer, who had a profound influence on Teniers. Teniers made several variations on the theme, which were often imitated by his contemporaries and later artist...

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An Old Woman Reading

Imitator of David Teniers the Younger

An old woman looks down intently at the large book she holds open – very likely a Bible, since she’s dressed in the plain clothing often worn by Calvinists, followers of a strict branch of the Protestant faith. This isn‘t a portrait but a tronie, pictures which showed stock characters, often with...

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Personification of Autumn (?)

Imitator of David Teniers the Younger

This painting of a man wearing a jaunty, feathered cap and holding up a glass of beer, a refill jug in his other hand, has historically been called ‘The Toper’. This was a popular term for a drinker or a drunkard, and a relatively common subject in Dutch and Flemish painting. However, it is possi...

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Peasants making Music in an Inn

Studio of David Teniers the Younger

An old man playing a lute and wearing a bright blue and yellow minstrel’s outfit is the focus of this gloomy tavern scene by a follower of David Teniers the Younger. He hunches over in concentration as he tunes the strings; to the left, an old woman holds up sheet music, her mouth slightly open a...

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A Country Festival near Antwerp

After David Teniers the Younger

Country peasants and smartly dressed gentlefolk assemble for a feast on the rolling hills outside Antwerp, seen silhouetted on the horizon. Cooks are busy preparing the meal in large cauldrons while birds wheel in the sky above, anticipating the pickings soon to be had. A stone cross carved with...

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You've viewed 6 of 23 works

David Teniers the Younger, 'An Old Peasant caresses a Kitchen Maid in a Stable', about 1650

About the work

Overview

In-depth

Key facts

Details

Provenance

Additional information

Source

Bibliography

About this record

Images

More works by David Teniers the Younger