David Teniers the Younger (1610–1690) was the most versatile and prolific member of a Flemish dynasty of painters. Born in Antwerp, he became a master of the city’s Guild of Saint Luke in 1632–1633 and married Anna Brueghel, daughter of Jan Brueghel the Elder, in 1637.

Teniers painted peasant interiors, tavern scenes, village festivals, guardrooms, alchemists, physicians, landscapes, religious pictures, portraits, and mischievous monkey scenes known as singeries. His sharp observation, small scale, and lucid handling made everyday life in the Southern Netherlands an international commodity.

From 1651 he served Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in Brussels as court painter and keeper of the Archduke’s great collection of Italian pictures. He later published its engraved catalogue, Theatrum Pictorium, in 1660—an important early model of the illustrated collection catalogue.