He claimed that his grandfather Julian Taisnier, who had moved from Ath (now located in the Walloon province of Hainaut) to Antwerp in the 16th century had been from a family that had been entitled to bear a coat of arms.

[11] The Conde de Fuensaldaña, then acting as Leopold Wilhelm's lieutenant in the Southern Netherlands, also sent Teniers to England in 1651 to purchase paintings at the Pembroke and presumably other sales.

[15] The new Governor General of the Spanish Netherlands, Don Juan of Austria continued the support for the artist that he had enjoyed from his predecessor the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm.

The early Flemish biographer Cornelis de Bie reports in his Het Gulden Cabinet published in 1662 that Don Juan was an amateur artist who regularly asked Teniers to give him instructions in art.

When Don Juan of Austria ended his term as Governor General of the Southern Netherlands in January 1659, Teniers appears to have withdrawn from active court duty.

[1] He purchased from the husband of Hélène Fourment, the widow of Rubens, a country estate called the 'Drij Toren' ('Three towers') located in Perk, in the environs of Brussels and Vilvoorde.

He was an important innovator of genre painting through his vivid depictions of peasants, soldiers and other 'lower class' individuals, whom he showed engaged in drinking, smoking, card or dice playing, fighting, music making etc.

These paintings show a radical move towards a more positive attitude towards country life and the peasantry than was reflected in his earlier satirical pieces influenced by Brouwer.

It is likely that the increased prominence of rural life and nature in his work of that period was connected to his 1662 purchase of Drij Toren, a country house in Perk in which he maintained a studio.

[28] The Arcadian spirit was conveyed through stock motifs such as cattle and sheep, bridges and classical ruins on a hill as well as through the general tonality and style of these works.

They thus give expression to the prevalent worldview of the ruling class of his day, of which Teniers aspired to be a part, which was that the good and humble peasant would always show reverence to his noble lord.

[33] Teniers first depicted Archduke Leopold Wilhelm with his collection in two pictures dated 1651 (one in Petworth House and the other in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium).

[13] By sending this work to Philip IV, the Archduke may have intended to pay homage to his uncle as a prominent connoisseur of Italian painting known for his large collection at the Royal Alcazar of Madrid.

As in the 17th century the power of a prince was no longer judged solely based on his military success, but even more so on his taste in, and appreciation of, art, the Archduke thus wanted to show that he could hold his own against the King.

An example is A picture gallery with two men examining a seal and a red chalk drawing, and a monkey present (At Sotheby's New York, 24 January 2002, lot 169).

These gallery paintings are heavy with symbolism and allegory and are a reflection of the intellectual preoccupations of the age, including the cultivation of personal virtue and the importance of connoisseurship.

Teniers also created an allegorical or satirical interpretation of a gallery painting in the drawing Monkeys' Masquerade: The Painter’s Studio, an Artist Seated (British Museum).

From the many modelli, which have been preserved, it is obvious that Teniers's copies constitute a true record of the originals even while he left out details and painted them in his typical fluid and transparent manner.

For instance, the modelli in the Metropolitan Museum of Art of the Old Age in Search of Youth attributed by Teniers to Correggio and the Adam and Eve after Padovanino are the most important records of these lost paintings.

It is this quality that Teniers refers to in his Allegory of Vanitas (1633, private collection) in which he included a chained monkey in fool's clothes who is looking through a telescope from the wrong end.

In Flanders Teniers was one of the principal practitioners of the genre together with his brother Abraham, Anton Goubau, Cornelis Mahu and Jan Baptist Tijssens the Younger.

The subject of the guardroom and its contents such as armor, colorful flags and banners, saddles, drums, pistols allowed Teniers to showcase his brilliance as a still life painter.

This drawing set the standard for the imagery of alchemists that was adopted by 17th century artists such as Jan Steen, David Rijckaert III and Adriaen van Ostade.

Teniers's new way of depicting alchemists was followed by contemporary artists such as Thomas Wijck, Frans van Mieris the Elder, Jacob Toorenvliet and Cornelis Bega.

[54] While alchemists were mainly concerned with transmutation of base metals into more noble ones, their endeavors were wider and also involved the use of their techniques to diagnose or cure people (the so-called 'iatrochemistry', which aimed to provide chemical solutions to diseases and medical ailments).

The subject of the guardroom and all its trappings such as armor, colorful flags and banners, saddles, drums and pistols gave Teniers ample opportunity to showcase his capabilities as a still life painter.

The young man blowing bubbles and the elements in the garland surrounding him such as the flowers, the dead fish and the armor and flags are all references to the theme of vanitas, i.e. the transience of life and the worthless nature of all earthly goods and pursuits.

[63] Other artists involved in the early development of the genre included Hendrick van Balen, Andries Danielsz., Peter Paul Rubens and Daniel Seghers.

[67] In the Dutch Republic Thomas Wijck, Frans van Mieris the Elder, Jacob Toorenvliet and Cornelis Bega were influenced by his scenes of alchemists.

In particular the village feasts of Teniers had shown the way for Watteau in the development of his fêtes galantes, which featured figures in ball dress or masquerade costumes disporting themselves amorously in parkland settings.