Lucas Vorsterman the Younger, David Teniers the Younger & Titian 'Tiziano Vecellio'

Lucas Vorsterman, the Younger (Antwerp, c. 1605 - 1667), studied engraving techniques under his celebrated father. Lucas Vorsterman, the Elder (1578-1656) was a principal engraver for both Rubens and Van Dyck and is considered by many to the finest interpretative engraver of these artists. Like his father, Lucas Vorsterman, Junior, was much admired for his portraits. He was, however, an accomplished engraver of landscapes, religious scenes and figure studies, after such masters as Snyders and Holbein. As well, the younger Vorsterman engraved a number of equestrian subjects after the designs of Diepenbeek.

Lucas Vorsterman was one of the major engravers for Teniers’s "Theatrum Pictorium". In total, he etched fifty-two works of art for this set over a four year period from 1656 to 1660. Lucas Vorsterman the Younger was admitted as a member of the Guild of St. Luke in Antwerp in 1651.

Titian 'Tiziano Vecellio' (Pieve di Cadore, c. 1487 - Venice, 1576): The greatest master of the Venetian School, Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) studied and trained under Giovanni Bellini, in Venice. As early as 1507, Titian was receiving government commissions and working alongside such artists as Giorgione. In 1516 he succeeded Bellini as the Official Painter to the Doge of Venice. By 1530 Titian’s clientele included most of the rulers and nobility of all of Catholic Europe. He was particularly patronised by Emperor Charles V and his son, Philip II, during the following years.

In the 1540’s Titian assumed the unofficial role of portraitist to the Farnese, the family of Pope Paul the Third. As well such powerful figures as the Dukes of Ferrara, Mantua and Urbino continually vied for his portraits and mythological and religious scenes. As a result Titian became perhaps the most politically powerful artist of the Italian Renaissance. Titian’s influence has proved to be vast. Such masters as Poussin, Velazquez and Rubens have revered his art.

David Teniers, the Younger (Antwerp, 1610 – Brussels, 1690): A famous Flemish genre painter, David Teniers first studied under his father, David the Elder (1582-1649). He became a master in the Antwerp painters’ guild in 1632 and was appointed the dean in 1645. Early he was influenced by Adriaen Brouwer and created mostly religious scenes. By 1640, however, David Teniers was concentrating upon the genre scenes and depictions of peasant life for which his art gained its greatest renown.

In 1651 David Teniers moved to Brussels where Archduke Leopold Wilhelm appointed him both as the court painter and the keeper of his prestigious art collection. In 1660 he published the "Theatrum Pictorium" and, in 1665, was the chief founder of the Antwerp Academy. Today his famous paintings are in the world’s major collections, such as the Prado, The Hague, Buckingham Palace, and the Hermitage.

"Madonna of the Cherries": This original etching belongs to one of the most interesting Flemish publications of the seventeenth century. Hapsburg Archduke Leopold Wilhelm was governor of the Spanish Netherlands and Belgium from 1646 through 1656. He was an avid art collector, who had acquired over thirteen hundred paintings, including more than five hundred by the Italian masters of the Renaissance. These important paintings now represent the core of the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

In Brussels, Leopold Wilhelm appointed the famous artist, David Teniers, the Younger, as both his court painter and as curator of his private collection. He also commissioned Teniers to catalogue some of his more famous acquisitions in a publication with reproduced etchings and engravings. Beginning in 1556 David Teniers painted miniature copies of these works of art which served as the model for the etchings and engravings.

During the following four years 246 plates were etched by such notable printmakers as Lucas Vorsterman, the Younger (52 plates), Jan van Troyen (56 plates), Pieter van Lisebetten (40 plates), Coryn Boel (29 plates) and Theodor van Kessel (27 plates). Although the frontis-piece dedication plate bears the date of 1658, the entire set was not completed and published until 1660, under the title of "Theatrum Pictorium". David Teniers, unfortunately, funded the publication himself, as (by 1660) the Archduke had withdrawn from office and had removed both his funding and his valuable collection to Vienna.

A second edition of the "Theatrum Pictorium" (Theatre of Paintings) was published in Antwerp in 1664. Second and later edition impressions of these plates bear engraved numbers within the plate-mark. As no number can be found in this impression of Madonna of the Cherries it surely hails from the first edition of 1660.

"Madonna of the Cherries" portrays the Virgin Mary in the centre of the composition. Standing on the ledge to the right is the Christ Child, and sitting beside him is St. Joseph. To the left is the young John the Baptist and, wearing a turban, Zacharias. Both Jesus and Mary are holding a bunch of cherries, hence the title of this painting. Titian’s original painting is now in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and the smaller copy by David Teniers is in the Wallace Collection.

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