Biography
Teniers was one of the most important seventeenth-century Flemish painters of low-life scenes. He first studied painting under his father in Antwerp. Although he painted some small religious pieces in the 1630s, it was his genre scenes that were most popular and for which he is best remembered. By 1633 he had become master of the Antwerp Guild of St Luke, and in 1644 he was appointed as Dean. He enjoyed the patronage of some of the most prominent men in the southern Netherlands, including the Bishop of Bruges and Archduke Leopold William, to whom he became court painter in 1651. Teniers’s success brought him great wealth, and his paintings remained popular long after his death. They were particularly admired by nineteenth-century collectors.
