TENIERS, DAVID. – Painter born in Antwerp on 15 Dec. 1610, died in Brussels on 25 Apr. 1690. A pupil of his father, he was admitted as a master in Antwerp in 1632–33.
In March 1651 he went to Brussels at the invitation of the governor Archduke Leopold William, who appointed him court painter and administrator of the Archducal art gallery. The new governor, Don John of Austria, confirmed him in the same year as court painter. He founded an art academy in Antwerp, which was inaugurated in 1665.
T.’s works span from 1633 to 1680. In his early pieces he is linked to the genre of Frans Francken II, though he surpasses him greatly from a pictorial standpoint; in his peasant scenes he turns toward the style of Adriaen Brouwer, whose influence remains evident in him until about 1634. Thereafter T. developed his own style, distinguished from that of his original model by a lighter tone of color, a brighter and warmer brushstroke, and a more pleasing composition.
After the age of thirty T. also included landscape in his works, in which he developed a very fine and personal art. The happy combination of
(from O. Raggi, Della Vita e delle Opere di P. Tenerani, Florence 1880, p. 38)
TENERANI, PIETRO – Genii of Fishing and Hunting (1825). Tenerani Collection.