David Teniers’s Theatrum Pictorium

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When Flemish artist David Teniers the Younger presented the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria with one of his paintings, a relationship was born that led to the first illustrated catalogue of a significant painting collection, the Theatrum Pictorium, “The Theater of Painting.”

oil painting depicting the rest on the flight into Egypt
David Teniers The Younger (Flemish, 1610–1690), “Cabinet Painting” of Titian’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt of c. 1510, 1650s, oil on canvas, 6 ¾ × 9 ¼ inches. Collection of Middlebury College Museum of Art, Vermont. Gift of Jane and Raphael Bernstein, 2016.379.

It was 1647 and the Archduke’s collection, formed in Brussels, boasted around 1,300 works. Collecting had become a powerful means of establishing an individual’s identity, personal taste, and status. Teniers was appointed court painter in 1651, becoming in effect the curator of the Archduke’s collection. To manage the growing collection, Teniers created small replicas, “cabinet paintings,” of the Archduke’s paintings. Under Teniers’ direction, these cabinet paintings provided guidance for a team of engravers to create prints of a selection of works to form the Theatrum Pictorium.

The first edition of the catalog, published by Teniers in 1660 and presented in four languages, was addressed “to all art lovers.” The Theatrum Pictorium has served as a model for subsequent illustrated painting catalogs. It also initiated the convention of listing a painting’s height before its width, still in use today.