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Peasants conversing
David Teniers the Younger17th century
Dulwich Picture Gallery
London, United Kingdom
The painting has been enlarged with added canvas at the top and bottom, probably by Sir Francis Bourgeois to make a pendant to DPG95, A Castle and its Proprietors, which is a similar size and has a pond in the foreground. The additions were evidently made up from pieces of canvas reused from other paintings.
The original sky is bright after a shower, but it was partly overpainted, when the canvas was extended, with heavier, more stormy clouds.
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Details
- Title: Peasants conversing
- Creator Lifespan: 1610 - 1690
- Date: 17th century
- Physical Dimensions: w1775 x h1302 cm
- Type: Painting
- Medium: Oil
- Work Nationality: Flemish
- Support: Canvas
- Provenance: London, Walsh, J. Bertels sale, 8 Apr. 1775, lot 55 ('Evening - Farmers pointing to a Man'; London, Noel Desenfans, 1804-1807: 1804 Insurance List, no. 15; London, Sir Francis Bourgeois, 1807-1811; Bourgeois Bequest, 1811; 1813 inv. no. 95 ('The Painter, his Wife, and a Gardener').
- Inscriptions: DT.F
- Further Information: Additions were added to this canvas—on the top, bottom, and right sides of the canvas—so that it matched the dimensions of DPG95 and the two could be presented as a pair. X-rays have revealed compelling evidence to support the theory that the additions were by Bourgeois: they are made up from pieces of canvas from other paintings cut up and re-used (there is a head under the upper-right sky); Bourgeois is known to have re-used canvases in this way. When displayed as a pair, the pictures presented a counterpoint between peasant and courtly life, a contrast seen in much of Teniers’s œuvre. The two pictures have many characteristic elements of Teniers’s mature style – silvery skies, an earthy palette, and a shepherd leaning on his staff in the background. A more convincing drawing contains a similar group of three men talking, but with a castle rather than a church in the background. The figure of the urinating man appears in another picture.
- Artist: Teniers, David the younger
- Acquisition Method: Bourgeois, Sir Peter Francis (Bequest, 1811)
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