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Additional notes: This is not a modern print. It was hand pulled from the copper plate more than 180 years ago. The strike is crisp and the lines are sharp.
Extra Information: The Farm Yard of Teniers is one of those pictures which never fail to recall images of rustic industry and rural comfort to the most careless observer. The economy of the stackyard, the management of the barn, the care which cows require, and the stable demands; together with the management of sheep, pigs and poultry, and various other matters on which the heads and hands of an opulent farmer's establishment employ themselves from light to dark, are all of that kind on which fashion has little influence, for they are of nature, and cannot be changed. It is that which makes most of the pictures of this eminent artist look like creations of yesterday. The work of a farmer goes hand in hand with nature; changing but with the change of seasons, it is therefore ever the same, or seemingly so: in truth the scene before us, though painted two hundred years ago, looks as English or as Scotch as a painting can look; and were it not for some slight nationality in the costume of the cowherd and the sheepboy, it might pass with the multitude for an image all our own. The whole is in perfect keeping—all is farm-like. Here are houses for the accommodation of the farmer and the protection of his cattle: a maiden has filled her pitcher, and is looking round to a boy—her master's son, perhaps, —who, weary and thirsty with bringing his little flock of sheep from their distant pasture, desires to taste the water, which, as the length of the line in her hand indicates, has been drawn out of a deep well. She is looking complacently on the boy, and it is plain she will indulge him, though pots and porringers are there requiring her purifying hand. The cows—three very fine ones—have just been brought home by a careful herdsman: beside one of them a milkmaid has taken her seat, and whilst baring her hands for their task the cowherd leans over his staff beside her, and seems to be telling her on what fine grassy banks his herd have fed, and how pleased they must be to yield their milk to the agreeable pressure of her long white fingers. His dog looks the same way with its master, as all trained dogs do: a hind makes his appearance with a wicker hamper, containing perhaps the evening meal of the cows, and the whole establishment seems in the full enjoyment of the hour of sunset, when the latest note of the bird is in the air and the dews begin to fall. A little cottage with its quota of peasants at the door stands on the other side of a quiet stream: the spire of the parish church rises among the distant trees, while the lofty gable of a peel or fortalice close to the farmer's hall, speaks of protection afforded not lately, but of old; at least so we interpret the absence of smoke from the chimney head, and the bare and snaggy top of a dead tree, showing like
Artist Biography: David Teniers was the most famous 17th-century painter of peasant life. He enjoyed international popularity in his own lifetime and during the 18th century, especially in France. Teniers's success was marked by the acquisition of a country house in 1662 and by the grant in 1680 of a patent of nobility. His work was imitated by many followers, including his son, David Teniers III. Teniers was born in Antwerp and probably trained by his father, David Teniers the Elder. The work of Brouwer was an important influence. Teniers produced a more refined version of Brouwer's peasant scenes, and later created scenes of fashionable life. His work was also influenced by his father-in-law Jan Brueghel. In 1632-3 Teniers became a master in the guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp. By 1649 he was probably already working for the King of Spain, as well as for Prince William of Orange and the Governor of the Netherlands, the Archduke Leopold William. In 1651 Teniers moved to Brussels where Archduke Leopold became his main employer. The archduke had assembled a famous collection of paintings, which became the nucleus of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Teniers' picture gallery paintings were based on this collection.

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