Object data
oil on panel
support: height 45.2 cm × width 59.1 cm
David Teniers (II)
Men Dicing in a Tavern
c. 1640
Inscriptions
- signature, bottom left: ·D·TENIERS.F.
- mark, on the reverse, branded: coat of arms of the city of Antwerp
- mark, on the reverse, stamped: the motif of a star
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: I. Verslype / L. Nijkamp, RMA, 13 December 2006
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 10 September 2010
Provenance
…; collection Lord Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend (1785-1853), Raynham Hall, Norfolk, by June 18311 and perhaps by 1829;2 his sale, London (Christie's), 11 April 1835, no. 30* (‘Teniers A Cavalier, with Boors gambling: interior’), £ 102 18 s, to the dealer John Smith;3 from whom, £ 129 19 s 2 p (including costs), to the dealer Albertus Brondgeest, 14 April, paid 28 April 1835 (‘An interior with men gambling & drinking by Teniers in his brown manner in a carved gilt frame’);4 from whom, fl. 2,000, to Adriaan van der Hoop (1778-1854), 1835;5 by whom bequeathed to the City of Amsterdam, with 223 other paintings, 1854;6 on loan from the City of Amsterdam to the museum since 30 June 1885; on loan to the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, 2004-107
Object number: SK-C-300
Credit line: On loan from the City of Amsterdam (A. van der Hoop Bequest)
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
David Teniers II (Antwerp 1610 - Brussels 1690)
The prolific, highly successful small-scale figure and landscape painter David Teniers II was the eldest son of the artist David Teniers I and Dymphna de Wilde; he was baptized in the Sint-Jacobskerk, Antwerp, on 15 December 1610. Taught by his father, he became a master in the Antwerp guild of St Luke in 1632/33.8 His first, extant signed and dated picture is of 1633 in which year he took on the first of his four Antwerp apprentices. On 22 June 1637 he married Anna Brueghel (1620-1656), the daughter of Jan Brueghel I (1568-1625), in a ceremony at which Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) was a witness; she brought property and wealth to the marriage. He was appointed dean of the guild of St Luke for the year 1645/46.
The following years saw his first contacts with the important collectors, Antoon Triest, Bishop of Ghent, and still more significantly, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, the governor of the Spanish Netherlands, whose court painter he became in 1651. Teniers settled in Brussels, and by 1657 was further appointed ‘ayuda da camera’ at the archducal court; his duties consisted in advising on the great range of artistic purchases made by the archduke particularly from the sales of the collections of the executed King Charles I of Great Britain and of the duke of Hamilton (1606-1644). He was sent to England by the count of Fuensaldaña (1603-1661) for this purpose between 1651 and 1655.9 For the archduke he also painted capriccio views of the display of his picture collection and prepared an etched catalogue of his Italian paintings, the Theatrum Pictorium, published in 1660. In 1656 following the death of his wife, he married Isabella de Fren. In the same year, his position as court painter to Leopold Wilhelm’s successor was confirmed; but it lapsed in 1659 under the next incumbent, with whom, however, Teniers was on friendly terms.
By 1662 he had bought the estate of Perk and the country house Dry Toren, not far from Het Steen – the property which Rubens had bought in 1635 – from Helena Fourment’s second husband, Jan-Baptist van Brouchoven van Bergeyck. Teniers was instrumental in obtaining from King Philip IV of Spain the charter to found a painters’ academy in Antwerp which was granted in 1663. He continued to work and sell paintings from his house in Brussels, in spite of objections from the Brussels guild of St Luke. In 1663 he was granted the noble status he had greatly desired. But his art was to become less popular and out of fashion, and his last years were marred by financial disputes with the children of his first marriage, so that he died in poverty. He was buried probably on 25 April 1690 in Brussels; his place of burial is not known.
REFERENCES
Klinge in M. Klinge and D. Lüdke (eds.), David Teniers der Jüngere 1610-1690: Alltag und Vergnügen in Flandern, exh. cat. Karlsruhe (Staatlichen Kunsthalle Karlsruhe) 2005-06, pp. 14-19; H. Vlieghe, David Teniers (1610-1690): A Biography, Turnhout 2011
Entry
Although the status of the signature is uncertain, there is no reason to doubt David Teniers II’s execution of this work. The panel maker has not been identified.10 The Salvator-size11 support is of a single piece of timber from a tree grown in the German Netherlandish region which would have been ready for use from 1552, and more plausibly from 1562.
As Klinge has pointed out, the grouping of the main protagonists and the pose of the dice thrower, much favoured by Teniers, was inspired by Adriaen Brouwer’s picture in the Munich Alte Pinakothek.12 That is thought to be a late work;13 as Brouwer died in early 1638, this would suggest that the Rijksmuseum picture was executed after circa 1636/37.
Closely related in composition, but with differences in dress, physiognomies and background and with some small variations in poses, is the drawing in the Courtauld Institute Galleries, London, which Klinge has related to a painting of 1648.14 But there are differences too between the drawing and this painting, such that it is legitimate to speculate as to whether the drawing could not also be related to the conception of the Rijksmuseum picture. The handling in the two paintings differs; the latter is likely to date from a few years earlier and to be more contemporary with the Munich Inn Scene of 1643;15 Klinge dates it circa 1640.16
As in the Brouwer, a common theme in Teniers’s gaming pictures is the disparity between the players. In the Rijksmuseum picture it lies in both age and status as it does in the gamers in the Metropolitan Museum Guardroom with the Release of St Peter, which Klinge has dated between 1645 and 1647,17 and in the interior of 1648, already referred to. In the present picture the officer’s winnings seem marginally higher. Klinge observed that the artist eschewed condemnation of gambling as preached by the Catholic Church. She believes that his attitude towards it may have been similar to that of Alfonso X, King of Castile and León (the Wise, 1221-1248) who, she recounts, maintained that gambling was ordained by God as a means of learning to cope with both good and bad fortune.18
Prominent (and unusual) in the foreground is a Westerwald stoneware pitcher, as Klinge has pointed out.19
Gregory Martin, 2022
Literature
M. Klinge, David Teniers de Jonge. Schilderijen, tekeningen, exh. cat. Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten) 1991, no. 20
Collection catalogues
1885, p. 107, no. 213 (with incorrect provenance); 1887, p. 165, no. 1410; 1903, p. 259, no. 2298 (with incorrect provenance); 1934, p. 277, no. 2298 (with incorrect provenance); 1976, p. 536, no. C 300
Citation
G. Martin, 2022, 'David (II) Teniers, Men Dicing in a Tavern, c. 1640', in Flemish Paintings in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20015871
(accessed 9 December 2025 08:57:28).