The Village Holiday (Primary Title)
Dance of the Peasants (Alternate Title)
David Teniers the Younger, Flemish, 1610 - 1690 (Artist)
David Teniers the Younger, an important painter of genre scenes representing peasants and poor people, was famous in his lifetime as the court painter to Austria’s Archduke Leopold Wilhem and the founder of the Antwerp Academy, an organization that taught drawing and art theory.
Teniers probably made this picture for the archduke, who sent it to the Imperial Court in Vienna in 1651. The artist’s painstaking attention to detail in the long line of carefully individualized dancers makes this one of his most important works.
As befits a painting made for a discriminating connoisseur, the peasants show none of the loutish behavior often present in paintings of the lower classes. Instead, it conforms to the idealistic perception at the time that country life was noble and poor people were joyous and carefree.
David Teniers the Younger and Adriaen Brouwer, Noortman & Brod, Ltd., New York, NY, October 7 - October 30, 1982; Noortman & Brod, Maastricht, Netherlands, November 19- December 11, 1982
17th Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings, Roanoke Museum of Fine Arts, Roanoke, VA, March 26 -April 22, 1981
The Human Figure in Art, Artmobile, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, February 4, 1967 - January 1968
The Williams Collection, Artmobile, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, September 6, 1965 - January 24, 1966
Lynchburg Fine Arts Center, Lynchburg, VA, September 23 - October 15, 1962
[1] Painted for the Archduke by Teniers when the latter was the Court Painter to Archduke Leopold at Brussels. See VMFA Curatorial file.
[2] Dates of possession may be 1711-1741; unconfirmed. See VMFA Curatorial file.
[3] First daughter of Emperor Carl VI, succeeding him to the throne.
[4] Emperor Joseph II transferred the Viennese Collection to the Castle Belvidere, exhibiting the painting there. See VMFA Curatorial file.
[5] Emperor Franz II transferred the collection to the Viennese Kunsthistorisches Museum, which was partially destroyed by the Germans during the so-called Liberation of Vienna, 1945. Unconfirmed. See VMFA Curatorial file.
[6] Accessioned November 15, 1956.
Some object records are not complete and do not reflect VMFA's full and current knowledge. VMFA makes routine updates as records are reviewed and enhanced.