Contact gallery for price		David Teniers the Younger Antwerp 1610 - 1690 Brussels The Temptation of St. Anthony Oil on panel 17 1/2 x 22 inches (44.5 x 56 cm) Signed with a monogram: D. Teniers Provenance: Sale Lempertz, Cologne, October 1904 Collection K.R. Alfred Weiss, Vienna, his sale Dorotheum November 30, 1971 Private Collection, Vienna Literature: Smith, Catalogue raisonné.  Vol. IX Suppl., p. 409, no. 13 Coming from a family of painters and draftsmen, David Teniers the Younger was notably the most famous and renown.  Although he was prolific and he painted nearly every type of picture, he was best known for his small cabinet pictures and rustic genre scenes.  It was his rustic genre paintings that were most coveted by the great collectors, among who were Archduke Leopold Wilhelm (for whom Teniers was Keeper of his pictures) and Charles I of England. Teniers became a master in Antwerp in 1632 and worked there until he settled in Brussels in 1651.  He was the court painter to the Archduke who was one of the most reputable connoisseurs and collectors of paintings and decorative art.  As court painter and keeper, Teniers traveled to England in 1650-55 to purchase pictures from Charles I collections, which were sold off by the Commonwealth. Our picture was one of several the artist painted in which he combined the biblical themes of Saint Anthony’s Temptation with the Seven Deadly Sins. In our particular painting, executed in the mid-seventeenth century, Saint Anthony sits quietly endeavoring to resist the fantastical pandemonium discharged around him. Teniers places Saint Anthony near the grotto entrance, but his head is turned from the hopeful wooden cross and from his hands clasped in prayer. Pictorially, the figure of Saint Anthony is enveloped by the various creatures scattered across the space, which speaks metaphorically to the dimension of the Saint’s Temptation. In the hierarchy of vices, Sloth is first, and here represented perched on a donkey and resting her head in her hand. Her features and gesture physically represent the psychological apathy that can lead to deadly idleness. Next to her is a fat-bellied Gluttony, who rides a pig-like monster, and raises his glass of wine coyly to Saint Anthony. Anger fiercely shakes a broom from the far left corner, her hair rising from behind in fury, and Avarice sits nearby, weighing the gold that surrounds her in bulging money sacks. In the center of the picture, Lechery and Pride stroll towards the Saint, represented as a pair of lovers and distinguished by their luxurious dress amid the squalor of the grotto. Everywhere, various demons prance about or fly overhead, contributing to the dank nightmarish atmosphere. Through the darkness, however, a stream of light cuts through the dark gloom, the curved shape of the grotto entrance rising up over the scene with the totemic power of an altar. We are convinced that Saint Anthony will withstand the confusion of human lusts swirling around him, that his moral aptitude will prevail in this cave of evil.