Description
David Teniers the Younger was a popular artist who specialized in small paintings of rustic Flemish life in the 1600s. In works such as Peasants Smoking in an Inn, an older man and a younger man in the foreground smoke tobacco. The younger man rests limply against the wall and his head lolls back, a gesture that symbolized that he had overindulged in smoke. Another standing man prepares his pipe and watches the younger man with amusement. Tobacco was a novelty in the 1600s, introduced from the Americas and East Indies with other new imports such as sugar cane and rice, and was believed to be a medicinal product. It was particularly recommended for people who lived in "waterish places" such as Antwerp, the capital of Flanders, where Teniers painted this scene. Although many medical practitioners believed tobacco to be a cure for numerous ailments, moral opponents to smoking criticized it as a danger to health and morals. The mixed reputation and widespread popularity of tobacco smoking thus made it a marketable and amusing subject for Flemish artists such as Teniers.
Provenance
Louis de Bourbon-Conde, Comte de Clermont, 1709-1771 (Paris, France);; Bought by Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Lebrun, died 1813 (Paris, France), 1796 for Richard Codman (Boston, Massachusetts);; By inheritance to his son, John Codman, 1755-1803 (Boston, Massachusetts), 1803;; By inheritance to his son, Charles R. Codman, 1784-1852 (Boston, Massachusetts), 1852;; By inheritance to his son, Richard Codman (Boston, Massachusetts);; Sold through Boussod-Valadon to Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Wade (Gates Mills, Ohio), 1893 [as Interior Public House];; By bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1916.
Accession Number
1916.1046
Medium
oil on wood
Dimensions
Framed: 46.5 x 37 x 4 cm (18 5/16 x 14 9/16 x 1 9/16 in.); Unframed: 37.2 x 26.3 cm (14 5/8 x 10 3/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Wade
Tags
Painting Baroque (1600–1750) Oil Painting Flemish
Background & Context
Background Story
David Teniers the Elder (1585-1649) was the father of the more famous David Teniers the Younger and a significant painter of peasant genre scenes in his own right. This painting of peasants smoking in an inn demonstrates the elder Teniers' contribution to the tradition of tavern and inn scenes that would become the signature subject of his son. The figures are rendered with a earthy realism — the smoke, the drink, the rough companionship of the inn — that captures the social rhythms of Flemish rural life in the mid-17th century. The wood panel support gives the paint a luminosity and intimacy that suits the subject's modest scale.
Cultural Impact
The elder Teniers' peasant scenes are less refined than his son's but arguably more directly observed, with a rawness that reflects his own difficult financial circumstances. His peasants smoke and drink without the polish and compositional sophistication that the younger Teniers would bring to similar subjects, but with a directness that gives the scene an authenticity his son's more elegant productions sometimes lack.
Why It Matters
Peasants Smoking in an Inn is the elder Teniers painting what he knew: the inn as a place of rough comfort, the peasants as people of genuine habit. The smoke, the drink, and the companionship are observed from life, not arranged for effect — the difference between a painter who knows his subject and one who knows how to sell it.
