Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in his Gallery in Brussels (IV)

This gallery scene shows Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, governor of the Southern Netherlands, pointing with his cane at paintings propped on the floor of a room crowded with pictures hung in several rows. Teniers includes himself in the background wearing a gold chain and sword, the marks of his post as director of the archduke's gallery. Above the door hangs a portrait of Philip IV of Spain, another of the painter's patrons, and behind the large pictures on the right a bust of Queen Christina of Sweden can be made out. The work belongs to the series with which Teniers recorded the archduke's collection before it was taken to Vienna; those engravings were issued in Antwerp in 1659 as the Theatrum Pictorium. Scholars date the canvas to after 1654, based on comparisons with other versions and with Teniers's own portrait. Several Italian paintings appear reversed, as in a mirror, suggesting the artist may have worked from small copies. The painting's list of depicted works is long and gives a good sense of the period's collecting tastes.

Painter

David Teniers the Younger

Date

http

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

100 × 128 cm

Museum

Bavarian State Painting Collections, Munich

Genre

interior view

Depicts

Raising the Young Man of Nain, Adoration of the Magi, Judith with the head of Holofernes, Portrait of Francesco Donato, Cain kills Abel, The Orator Giovan Pietro Maffeis (?) (1533-1603), Boy with a Flute, Lamentation with angels

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