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Two men sit playing cards at a narrow table as three more look on and others urinate, sleep, or gather near the entrance of a tavern in this horizontal painting. All the people have pale, peachy skin and wear jackets, pants, and hats in shades of fawn brown, muted marine blue, parchment white, and charcoal gray. The card players take up the bottom left quadrant of the composition. The player to our left holds his cards out so we can see them as he lifts a tall tankard. He sits on a wooden chair with a vivid red cap hanging from one rail on the back. The player across from him sits on a wooden box and has an iron key hanging from the hip we see. He shows his cards to a third man, directly across from us, who sits and leans forward nearly nose-to-nose, smiling broadly with lips parted. That third man wears an orchid-purple hat and earthy brown and blue clothing. He holds a long-stemmed white clay pipe in one hand and the handle of another tall tankard with the other. Two men, both with clay pipes, stand on the far side of the table to watch the action, and another stands facing away from us near the wall to the left, presumably urinating into a pot there. A knee-high jug with a pewter cap sits near the first player and a piece of chalk and a picture of an owl flanked by spectacles and a candle hang on the light brown wall overhead. This room opens onto a larger room beyond, where one man lies belly down on a bench with his face buried in his crossed arms. Another man sits on a bench to the right, and four men gather near the door on the far wall. A woman stands in the partially open door and looks at one of the men. Dishes and vessels line a high shelf to the left of the door, and a fire burns in a high-mantled fireplace to our right. In the lower right corner and again close to us, a barrel, clay dish, white cloth, chopped firewood, and a sleeping dog are near a wooden beam that parallels the edge of the painting. The artist signed the lower right corner, “D. TENIERS FEC,” and, on the picture of the owl are the letters “AA” and the date, 1658.

David Teniers the Younger

Tavern Scene, 1658

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 50-C

Medium

oil on panel

Dimensions

overall: 48.7 x 68.7 cm (19 3/16 x 27 1/16 in.)

framed: 69.2 x 89.5 cm (27 1/4 x 35 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Robert H. and Clarice Smith

Accession Number

1975.77.1

Artists / Makers

David Teniers the Younger (artist) Flemish, 1610 - 1690

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Provenance

Prince Golitzyn, Paris; (sale, Lebrun, Paris, 28 February 1825, no. 40, as Chapeau rouge); (De Fontaine).[1] M. Boursault, Paris; (his sale, at his residence, Coutellier and Paillet, Paris, 7 May 1832, no. 53); purchased by (Falkner), probably for Edmund Higginson [1802-1871], Saltmarshe Castle, near Bromyard, Herefordshire;[2] (his sale, Christie & Manson, London, 4 June 1846, no. 207, as Card Players-Chapeau Rouge); Falkner.[3] Samuel Sandars, Esq.; by inheritance to his wife, Mrs. Samuel Sandars.[4] Alan Rofe, London.[5] (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 15 March 1929, no. 70); (De Casseres).[6] Ernst Wilhelm Sachs, London; (sale, Sotheby's, London, 24 June 1970, no. 99, as A Tavern Scene ["Le Chapeau Rouge"]); (Terry-Engell Gallery, London); sold October 1972 to Robert H. and Clarice Smith, Washington, D.C.; gift 1975 to NGA.

[1] The exact identity of the prince is unknown; two possibilities are Dmitry Alexseevich Golitzyn (1734-1803), who was the Russian ambassador to France for many years and negotiated numerous acquisitions and commissions on behalf of the Hermitage, or Dmitry Mikhailovich Golitzyn (1721-1793), also a diplomat and the first member of the family to collect privately on a large scale. The painting was known at that time by the title Le Chapeau Rouge. An annotated copy of the catalogue in the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD) lists the buyer as "de Fontaine." The entry indicates that the painting had, at one point, already been engraved under the title Chapeau rouge.

[2] An annotated copy of the 1832 sale catalogue in the RKD lists the buyer as "Falkner" (see n. 3; no "u"). John Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, 9 vols., London, 1829-1842: 9(1842):no. 210, describes the painting as "Purchased with the Boursault Collection for E. Higginson, Esq."

[3] Algernon Graves, Art Sales from Early in the Eighteenth Century to Early in the Twentieth Century (Mostly Old Master and Early English Pictures, 3 vols., London, 1918-1921: 3(1921):199, 331 cites "Faulkner" as the purchaser, although the name is spelled "Falkner" in an annotated copy of the sale catalogue (in NGA curatorial files). This is possibly the same buyer as at the 1832 sale.

[4] Mr. Sandars is listed as the owner of the painting when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1882. After his death Mrs. Sandars came into possession of the picture, for she is listed as its owner in the 1908 Winter Exhibition at the Royal Academy.

[5] Alan Rofe is cited as a previous owner, following Sandars, in the 1970 auction catalogue.

[6] The name De Casseres (possibly an art dealer or Arthur de Casseres) is found in an annotated copy of the auction catalogue in the Frick Art Reference Library, New York. Once again, the painting is listed as Le Chapeau Rouge.

Associated Names

Boursault
Casseres, de
Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd.
Falkner
Fontaine, de
Golitzyn, Prince
Higginson, Edmund
Lebrun
Rofe, Alan
Sachs, Ernst Wilhelm
Sale, Paris
Sandars, Samuel
Smith, Robert H., Mr. and Mrs.
Sotheby's, London
Terry-Engell Gallery

Bibliography

1829: Smith, John. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters. 9 vols. London, 1829-1842: 3(1831):385, no. 483; 9(1842):471, no. 210.

1842: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Gallery of Pictures, Collected by Edmund Higginson, Esq., of Saltmarshe. London, 1842: 31, no. 70.

1971: "Notable Works of Art now on the Market." The Burlington Magazine 113 (June 1971): unpaginated, pl. 28, repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 386, repro.

1991: Kling, Margret. David Teniers the Younger: Paintings, Drawings. Exh. cat. Koninklijk Museum voor Schoone Kunsten, Antwerp, 1991: 266, 91a, repro.

1992: Bauman and Liedtke 1992, 372, no. 479, repro.

1997: Southgate, M. Therese. The Art of JAMA: One Hundred Covers and Essays from The Journal of the American Medical Association. St. Louis, 1997: 118-119, 208, color repro.

2005: Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Flemish Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2005: 245-249, color repro.

2020: Libby, Alexandra. “From Personal Treasures to Public Gifts: The Flemish Painting Collection at the National Gallery of Art.” In America and the Art of Flanders: Collecting Paintings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and their Circles, edited by Esmée Quodbach. The Frick Collection Studies in the History of Art Collecting in America 5. University Park, 2020: 140, 141 color fig. 81.