David Teniers the Younger

(Antwerp 1610-1690)

said to be after Jacopo Negretti, called Palma il Giovane

The Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist

Footnotes

Provenance
Presumably, Collection of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722), Blenheim Palace, and thence by descent through the family to
George Charles, 8th Duke of Marlborough, Blenheim Palace
His sale, Christie's, London, 26 July 1886, lot 157 (sold for £23.2), where purchased by
Collection of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot, Margam Castle, Port Talbot, and thence by descent to his daughter
Miss Emily Charlotte Talbot, Margam Castle, Port Talbot
Her sale, Christie's, London, 29 October 1941, lot 419 (together with another work by Teniers, Christ Bound before Pilate, after Andrea Schiavone)
Private Collection, The Netherlands, for at least 70 years

Exhibited
London, Charles Davis Gallery, A Collection of 120 Paintings by David Teniers from Blenheim Palace, January 1885, no. 177

Literature
G. Scharf, Catalogue Raisonné or A list of the Pictures in Blenheim Palace, Part I, London, 1862, no. 177
G. Vertue, 'Notebooks,' in The Volume of the Walpole Society, vol. 26, 1937-1938, p. 135

Engraved
By Peeter van Lisebetten, as no. 177 after Palma Giovane for the Theatrum Pictorium

The Hapsburg Archduke Leopold Wilhelm was stationed in Brussels as Governor of the Southern Netherlands from 1646-1656 and in 1651 appointed David Teniers as his court painter. The Archduke was in the process of forming one of the most remarkable collections of Old Master paintings to be amassed in the 17th century (much of which now hangs in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna) and had recently acquired the outstanding collection of the Duke of Hamilton who lost his life in the aftermath of the Royalist defeat in the English Civil War. This newly-formed collection of over 1300 works is the subject of Teniers's celebrated large-scale paintings on copper showing the interior of the Archduke's picture gallery, but it was a collection of which Teniers also became the de facto curator. In an extraordinarily ambitious project he set out to create an illustrated catalogue of a selection of 243 of these works, employing a team of 12 engravers to work from small-scale oil copies that he himself painted. The resulting volume, published in 1660, became known as the Theatrum Pictorium and was the first ever illustrated catalogue to be produced of a painting collection.

In due course Teniers's oil modelli were sold off to various collectors, but the largest single acquisition was made by John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, (1650-1722) who bought a group of 120. These were first recorded as being at Blenheim in 1728 and through much of the 19th Century they hung together in the Billiard Room until dispersed at the Blenheim sale of 1883; the present study was among them. Examples have found their way into major national collections and today can be seen in The Courtauld Gallery (who own 14), the Museo del Prado, Madrid, the Royal Collection, the National Gallery of Ireland and Glasgow Museums. The Theatrum Pictorium – and Teniers's modelli - remain a significant record of a landmark collection, and a point of reference for paintings which in some cases have been altered or lost in the intervening years. No painting by Palma of the present composition is recorded and it may be the case the that original painting is by a different hand.