David Teniers the Younger

David Teniers the Younger (15 December 1610 – 25 April 1690) was a Flemish artist born in Antwerp, the son of David Teniers the Elder. His son David Teniers III and his grandson David Teniers IV were also painters. His wife Anna, née Anna Breughel, was the daughter of Jan Brueghel the Elder and the granddaughter of Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

Through his father, he was indirectly influenced by Elsheimer and by Rubens. The influence of Adriaen Brouwer can be traced to the outset of his career. There is no evidence, however, that either Rubens or Brouwer interfered in any way with Teniers's education, and Smith (Catalogue Raisonné) may be correct in supposing that the admiration which Brouwer's pictures at one time excited alone suggested to the younger artist his imitation of them. The only trace of personal relations having existed between Teniers and Rubens is the fact that the ward of the latter, Anne Breughel, the daughter of Jan (Velvet) Breughel, married Teniers in 1637.

Admitted as a "master" in the Guild of St Luke in 1632, Teniers had even before this made the public acquainted with his works. The Berlin Museum possesses a group of ladies and gentlemen dated 1630. No special signature positively distinguishes these first productions from those of his father, and we do not think it correct to admit with some writers that he first painted religious subjects. Dr. Bode, in a study of Brouwer and his works, expresses the opinion that Teniers's earliest pictures are those found under the signature "Tenier." "Tenier" is a Flemish version of a thoroughly Walloon name, "Taisnier" which the painter's grandfather, a mercer, brought with him when he came from Ath in 1558; and Dr. Bode's supposition is greatly strengthened by the circumstance that not only David the elder but his brother Abraham and his four sons were all inscribed as "Tenier" in the ledgers of the Antwerp Guild of St Luke.

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