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Autumn
David Teniers the YoungerBefore 1690
Dulwich Picture Gallery
London, United Kingdom
This painting represents an allegory of Autumn and belongs to a series of four depicting the Seasons. Autumn is personified by a cheerful man, possibly an inn-keeper, standing next to wine barrels, crowned with a vine wreath and raising a glass and holding a jug. Teniers liked to use ordinary people as models for his paintings, as can be seen here, and also in his allegory of Winter hanging nearby.
Teniers' appeal to English collectors increased during the course of the eighteenth century, when his work was praised by famous artists like the English portraitist Sir Joshua Reynolds.
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Details
- Title: Autumn
- Creator Lifespan: 1610 - 1690
- Date: Before 1690
- Physical Dimensions: w429 x h670 cm
- Type: Painting
- Medium: Oil
- Work Nationality: Flemish
- Support: Canvas
- Studio of: Teniers, David the younger
- Provenance: London, Noel Desenfans, 1802-1807: London, Skinner and Dyke, Desenfans sale, 17 Mar. 1802, lot 68 (Descriptive Catalogue no. 96: The Four Seasons, in 4 Pictures [The first represents the spring, under the figure of a gardener, who is carrying in a pot of earth, an orange tree in flower; at a distance is seen a building in a parterre, where other gardeners are at work. The second offers us, summer under the figure of a reaper, who holds a scythe; and the distance, a field of corn, where numbers of men and women are gathering in the harvest. The third, to represent autumn, is a man near a few barrels, upon which are some grapes. He is crowned with vine leaves, a bottle of new wine in one hand, and a glass in the other: at a distance is a vineyard, where men are gathering grapes. The fourth, as winter, shews us an old man, suffering from cold in a country where the snow is falling. He is dressed in fur, leaning with one hand, upon his stick, and holding in the other, a foot stove. On one side are men skaiting; and at a distance, a village covered with snow] £17.6 for lots (bt in); London, Sir Francis Bourgeois, 1807-1811; Bourgeois Bequest, 1811.
- Further Information: Here Teniers represents the season Autumn, identified by the golden landscape with a peasant bringing in the harvest. Like his portrayal of Winter (DPG 321), this composition was likely part of a series of paintings representing the Four Seasons. Interestingly, Desenfans bought this painting as by Teniers under the title The Jolly Landlord but the whereabouts of the other three seasons is not known.
- Acquisition Method: Bourgeois, Sir Peter Francis (Bequest, 1811)
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