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| Title | Winter Landscape with the Nativity | |
| Collection | Southampton City Art Gallery | |
| Artist | Teniers, David, I (Flemish painter, 1582-1649) | |
| Date Earliest | possibly about 1640 | |
| Date Latest | possibly about 1649 | |
| Description | The scant biography of David Teniers I was only reconstructed as recently as the 1960s. It appears that David Teniers I, the father of the more illustrious David Teniers II (1610-1690) to whom many of the father's works were attributed, travelled to Rome early in his career where he was influenced by Adam Elsheimer. Elsheimer's influence can occasionally found in the elder Teniers' few signed paintings. He was apparently back in his native Antwerp by 1606-7 where he remained for the rest of his long career. His later works show the influence of his son. The landscape style of the elder Teniers is distinctive and belongs to the tradition of Pieter Bruegel I, but for his figures he occasionally used collaborators. This seems to be the case with the Southampton Winter Landscape with the Nativity. The naturalistic winter scene on the right, which has cautiously been attributed to Teniers I on the grounds of its similarity to other works attributed to the artist, is beautifully depicted, while the figures on the left making up the nativity scene are much weaker in execution. This is particularly evident when we compare the clumsily painted celestial clouds surrounding the angels to the left with those of the naturalistically depicted overcast sky on the right. As a result of this discrepancy in the hands, as well as of the pictures unusual and not altogether successful composition, the two halves of the painting sit uneasily together. | |
| Current Accession Number | SCAG 1408 | |
| Subject | landscape; religion (Nativity) | |
| Measurements | 123.5 x 173.5 cm cm (estimate) | |
| Material | oil on canvas | |
| Acquisition Details | Purchased from R. E. A. Wilson, 1951, for £100 (Chipperfield Fund). | |
| Publications | Wright, C., Old Master Paintings in Britain, London, 1976, p. 65, as Flemish School, seventeenth century; Southampton Art Gallery, Illustrated Inventory of Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, Southampton, 1980, p. 96; Wright, C., Renaissance to Impressionism: Masterpieces from Southampton City Art Gallery, London, 1998, p. 116, no. 83, ill. | |
| Rights Owner | Southampton City Art Gallery | |
| Author | Francesco Nevola | |