A Kermis on St George's Day c. 1664-67
Oil on canvas | 85.4 x 110.7 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 405207
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This is a fair to celebrate St George’s day, whose banner appears hanging from the upper window of the inn to the left. Teniers’s painting of the 1660s is a conscious tribute to the tradition of the Bruegel family, harking back to examples by Pieter Bruegel the Elder from a century earlier, but most obviously resembling the multi-figure, multi-episode crowd scenes of Jan Breughel (compare CWLF 9, 405513). Its desire to pack in as much comic incident as possible gives it the air of an animated film.
Provenance
Purchased by George IV in 1811; recorded hanging in the Colonnade Room at Carlton House in 1819 (no 145) as a pair to Tenier's Harvest Scene (RCIN 405206) and valued at 450 guineas; in the Picture Gallery at Buckingham Palace in 1841 (no 131)
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Medium and techniques
Oil on canvas
Measurements
85.4 x 110.7 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
104.0 x 130.0 x 6.0 cm (frame, external)
Category
Object type(s)
Other number(s)
Alternative title(s)
The Village Festival
The Village Dance