Description of The Good Kitchen.—The Hague possesses two fine examples of this artist. In The Good Kitchen, a splendid work of his middle period, painted in 1644, he delights us especially with masterly representation of assembled details. Magnificently painted are the fish and fowl, pots and kitchen stuff; only, perhaps, is the background keyed up a little too high. The figures, as unfortunately so frequently happens with Teniers, are somewhat uninteresting; only the little boy who is holding the dish for his mother (evidently the portrait of a child) looks out at us in a lifelike and endearing manner.
A famous kitchen it is, in fact; and it is evident that a feast of some consequence is in preparation. Fowl, game, fish, vegetables, fruits, all are there on the tables and the floor. In the background, before a big fire, a cook is roasting joints, and a man and woman are very busy close beside him. In front, in the middle, and in the bright light, is seated the young mistress of the house, also aiding in the preparations. For the moment she is peeling a lemon, and the little boy is standing beside her holding a plate. She wears a blood-colored skirt, and on her sky-blue bodice expands a broad collar of a whiteness that Metsu would envy. The whole is very ably and broadly painted with that just and free touch and those spirited accents which characterize the technique of Teniers. It is painted at the beginning of his best period when his silvery period begins: he was then thirty-four years old.
Burger cleverly says: "Like certain of those fishes that he has painted so well, Teniers is excellent between the head and tail." The Good Kitchen is painted on copper and is only two feet and a half broad. A small picture on wood shows an alchemist with a gray beard seated beside a table holding a book. His assistant is kneeling beside a furnace.
Sir Joshua Reynolds said:
"The works of David Teniers, Jun., are worthy the closest attention of a painter who desires to excel in the mechanical knowledge of his art. His manner of touching, or what we call handling, has perhaps never been equalled: there is in his pictures that exact mixture of softness and sharpness which is difficult to execute."
Tilborgh's Picture of A Dinner.—We must not neglect now to look at the one picture by Tilborgh, A Dinner, particularly interesting on account of the personages represented.
Tilborgh (1625-78), supposed to have been a pupil of Teniers, certainly follows him in choice of subject—interiors of taverns, peasants merry-making, kermesses, village feasts, etc. He was popular in his day,—even more so, it is said, than Teniers himself. The dinner is taking place in the home of Adriaen van Ostade, who is seated in the middle, with his wife on his right, beyond whom are a man and a woman. On the left is Paul Potter, with long hair and a large hat, dressed in a pearl-gray doublet and red stockings. His general appearance is very gay, and quite a contrast to the melancholy portrait by B. van der Helst, which also hangs in this gallery. Near Potter stands his silly little wife, dressed in light blue,—a not specially graceful figure. Two other painters are standing on the left, talking together. Burger thinks they may be Tilborgh himself and Isaak van Ostade.