David Teniers The Younger Biography | Oil Paintings.

By the age of sixteen, David Teniers the Younger was studying with his father who was sometimes in debt which landed him occasionally in jail, to support the family, David the Younger painted reproductions of old masters. In 1632, by the age of twenty-two, he was Admitted as a "master" in the Guild of St Luke but David Teniers the Younger even before this time was already known by the public. In 1635 he traveled to Paris, and soon thereafter went to England where he signed a contract with the Antwerp art dealer Chrisostomos van Immerseel.

David Teniers the Younger came into the famous Brueghel artist family in 1637 when he married Anna Brueghel, daughter of Jan Brueghel the Elder, who was the son of Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Paul Rubens, who had been the guardian of Anna Brueghel after her father’s death, was a witness at the wedding, and Teniers was able to cement a close relationship with Rubens.

Another major artistic influence on David Teniers the Younger's early work was the Flemish painter Adriaen Brouwer who was working in Antwerp for ten years starting in the mid-1620s. He was an important innovator of genre painting through his vivid depictions of peasants, soldiers, and other 'lower class' individuals.

The Antwerp Guild of St. George asked David Teniers the Younger when he was thirty-one to paint the group portrait the Meeting of the Civic Guards, a very detailed painting, correct to the minutest detail.

In 1650 Teniers moved to Brussels to work for Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria as a court painter and supervisor of the Archduke's art gallery that had been set up in his palace. David Teniers the Younger played an important role in the development of many different genres, especially gallery paintings. When Leopold Wilhelm returned to Vienna in1656, Teniers' appointment ended. The picture gallery was moved to Austria, and a first-rate flower painter, Jan Anton van der Baren, became the keeper of the gallery in Vienna.

David Teniers the Younger wanted to be made a knight and in a petition to the Spanish King, he reminded him that the honor had been bestowed upon Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony Van Dyck. The king declared his readiness to grant the request, but on the condition that Teniers should not sell any more paintings, and this demand was refused. So he decided instead to pursue the founding of an art academy in Antwerp.

Teniers became the driving force behind the foundation of an Academy in Antwerp. The artist used his connections and sent his son to Madrid to assist in the negotiation with the Spanish King. When Teniers came from Brussels in 1663 with the royal charter creating the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts, only the second such institution in Europe after the one in Paris, there were great celebrations in Antwerp.

The Prodigal Son, scarcely 16 by 28 inches, fetched 30,000 Livres (equivalent to US$120,000 today) in 1776 and, $8500 (Equivalent to US$187,000 today) in 1876. The Belgian government paid $8000 (Equivalent to US$120,000 today) in 1867 for the Village Pastoral painted in 1652.

Teniers' genre paintings were influential on northern European painters of the seventeenth century. His work was easily accessible to other artists as he was one of the most reproduced artists of his time and prints were produced in large quantities. Teniers is particularly known for developing the peasant genre, and the tavern scene. Teniers' work was very much admired by French painters of that time, particularly the French Rococo painter Jean Antoine Watteau. The village feasts paintings of David Teniers the Younger had shown the way for Watteau in the development of his fêtes galantes.

Art Movement: Dutch Golden Age.
Artists Influencing David Teniers the Younger: Adriaen Brouwer, Paul Rubens.
He Traveled To England, Netherlands.
Painters David Teniers the Younger Influenced: Gillis van Tilborgh, Antoine Watteau.
Artist Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist, with text adapted from Wikipedia.