Lot 1061 Dα

David Teniers the Younger was as highly famed as an artist posthumously as throughout his lifetime. In the 18th century France his paintings sold for exceptionally high prices; he inspired artists such as Jean Siméon Chardin, and his work was considered the quintessential example of Netherlandish genre painting. This small copper panel showing a smiling peasant happily raising his glass to toast the beholder is an exceptional example of the French enthusiasm for Teniers. The work was made into an engraving by Pierre Chenu in Paris in 1743, and this mirrored print was given the classic title “Le Buveur Flamand” (fig. 3).
The bawdy verse with which Chenu embellished his engraving expresses all that, not only contemporary, viewers appreciate in Teniers' genre scenes. They depict a sympathetic image of happy, carefree peasants enjoying fetes, meals, or liaisons. Teniers' works follow in the tradition established by Adriaan Brouwers. However, while Browers' figures gave the appearance of pugnacious thugs - fighting and making faces - Teniers' peasants are open, friendly, and well mannered. He combines the mild joviality of his motifs with technical brilliance in his painting. This is particularly evident in the way he renders the still life elements and the figure in this work so naturalistically despite the reduced colour palette.

Before Chenu reproduced this work as an engraving in the 1740s, it was kept in one of the most prominent art collections in Paris. Namely, that of the Comtesse de Verrue, a politically and culturally important figure in the city at the time. This work is thought to be that listed as no. 66 in the hand-written catalogue of her collection sale from 1737 (fig. 1). The piece passed into English, North- and South American collections before finding its way to Germany.