Abraham Teniers

Abraham Teniers (1 March 1629 – 26 September 1670) was a Flemish painter and engraver who specialized in genre paintings of villages, inns and monkey scenes. He was a member of artist family Teniers which came to prominence in the 17th century. He was also active as a publisher.

Abraham Teniers was born in Antwerp where he was baptized on 1 March 1629. He was the son of the prominent genre painter David Teniers the Elder and Dymphna Cornelisse de Wilde (also called 'Dymphna Hendrikx'). Three of his brothers were also painters: David the Younger (1610–90) who became the most successful of the Teniers painting dynasty, Juliaan III (1616–79) and Theodoor (1619–97).

Abraham Teniers likely trained with his father and older brother David. He was admitted as a ‘wijnmeester’ (i.e. son of a master) in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1646.

Abraham married Isabelle de Roore on 16 July 1644. He was a captain of the local schutterij (civil militia) of Antwerp. He was active in the local chamber of rhetoric called the 'Olyftack' ('Olive branch') where he was received as a captain in 1660. In the Guild year 1661-62 Franciscus Bock was registered as his pupil.

Like his brother David before him, Abraham found appreciation at the court in Brussels and the art-loving Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria – then the governor of the Southern Netherlands and a resident of Brussels – appointed him as court painter.

Abraham died in Antwerp.

Abraham Teniers is mainly known for his genre scenes which depict themes and are executed in a style not dissimilar to those of his father and brother David who are his presumed teachers. His favorite subjects were villages with peasant dancing or playing music, inns with peasants indulging in drink, food and smoking and monkey scenes.

If the attributions by the Prado Museum are correct, Abraham painted two Guardroom Scenes now held in the collection of the Prado Museum. A guardroom scene is a type of genre scene that became popular in the mid-17th century, particularly in the Dutch Republic. In Flanders there were also a few practitioners of the genre including David Teniers the Younger, Anton Goubau, Cornelis Mahu and Jan Baptist Tijssens the Younger.

...
Wikipedia