David Teniers the Elder

The Calvary

David Teniers the Elder (* 1582 in Antwerp ; † July 29, 1649 there ) was a Flemish painter.

Life

Teniers was a student of his older brother, Juliaen . He worked in Rome between 1600 and 1605 and was certainly in contact with Adam Elsheimer and possibly his pupil. The claim that David Teniers was a student of Peter Paul Rubens must be rejected. However, they could possibly have known each other in Rome. Teniers returned to Antwerp around 1605 and was accepted as a freelance master in the Guild of St. Luke in Antwerp. He took many students into his workshop (including his own four sons), speculated in real estate (bankruptcy in the late 1620s), and worked as an art dealer (visiting Paris in 1635 in this activity).

His sons, u. a. David Teniers the Younger and Abraham Teniers also became painters. Teniers died in Antwerp on July 29, 1649.

Works

The alchemist

After initially painting large church pictures of a dry color, he later turned to landscape, the fantastic and rural genre, the same area that his more famous son treated. The images of the father differ from those of the son in that they are harsher and drier and that the brushwork is more pointed with less witty characteristics.

A considerable number of his monumental history paintings were intended for the churches in East Flanders. Those that survive show clear connections with Rubens' classicist tendencies from the same period. These works also reveal the influence of Caravaggio, acquired during his stay in Italy, especially in the emphasis on the contrast between brightly lit, and consequently strongly modeled, sections and hard, impenetrable shadows.

Works (selection)

Exodus of the witches (in the Museum of Douai),
Carving farmers in front of the village tavern (in the gallery in Darmstadt),
The temptation of St. Anthony (in galleries in Berlin and Schwerin),
Mountain landscape with castle (in the Braunschweig Museum),
eight landscapes with biblical and mythological staffage (in the imperial gallery in Vienna)

literature

Joseph Eduard Wessely : Teniers, David the Elder . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 37, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1894, p. 563.

Web links

Commons : David Teniers the Elder - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

↑ Erik Duverger, Hans Vlieghe, David Teniers the Elder: a forgotten Flemish successor to Adam Elsheimer , Haentjes, Dekker & Gumbert., 1971
↑ ^a ^b David Teniers (I). Biographical data and works in the Netherlands Institute for Art History (Dutch)
↑ ^a ^b Oxford Grove Art: David Teniers I (English)

personal data
SURNAME	Teniers, David the Elder
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Dutch painter
DATE OF BIRTH	1582
PLACE OF BIRTH	Antwerp
DATE OF DEATH	July 29, 1649
Place of death	Antwerp

[1] Erik Duverger, Hans Vlieghe, David Teniers the Elder: a forgotten Flemish successor to Adam Elsheimer , Haentjes, Dekker & Gumbert., 1971

[rkd-2] David Teniers (I). Biographical data and works in the Netherlands Institute for Art History (Dutch)

[og-3] Oxford Grove Art: David Teniers I (English)