Lot 1321 Dα

David Teniers the Younger was the leading Flemish genre painter of his times, and was among the most successful and productive artists in Antwerp in the 17th century. His rank as an artist is illustrated by the illustriousness of his patrons: Teniers became court painter to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, stadtholder of the southern Netherlands, in Brussels in 1651.
Margot Klinge dates this work to the 1640s, the decade in which Teniers began using the motif of peasants in the open air. He depicted his subjects feasting, working or at rest, as in the present work, and with a distinctly sympathetic eye in contrast to artists like Adrian Brouwer. This scene of figures grouped around a basket of food for their midday meal (and nap) conveys an almost pastoral mood, with nothing bawdy or rough about it.