(Antwerp 1610–1690 Brussels)
Saint Peter (after Palma il Giovane),
oil on panel, 23.2 x 17.2 cm, framed

Provenance:
Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, Brussels (1614–1662);
Collection of the Dukes of Marlborough, Blenheim Palace, 1886;
Private European collection

Exhibited:
London, Davis Galleries, A Collection of One Hundred and Twenty Paintings by David Teniers (from Blenheim Palace), The Property of His Grace the Duke of Marlborough, on Exhibition at Mr. Davis’s Galleries, London 1884, no. 85 (181)

Literature:
G.Scharf, Catalogue raisonné: or, a list of the pictures in Blenheim Palace, 1862, p. 163, no. 85 (181);
C. Davies, A Collection of One Hundred and Twenty Paintings by David Teniers (from Blenheim Palace), The Property of His Grace the Duke of Marlborough, on Exhibition at Mr. Davis’s Galleries, London 1884, p. 27, no. 85 (181)

As a court painter to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, the governor of the Spanish Netherlands, David Teniers copied selected works from the latter’s celebrated collection of Italian paintings at the Brussels court. These so-called ‘pasticci’ date from the mid-1650s and served printmakers as models for engravings of identical dimensions. In 1660, after all engravings had been produced, David Teniers published his famous Theatrum Pictorum, illustrating more than 240 paintings from the archducal collection. The present painting, based on a work by Palma Il Giovane, was also made in this context. It was engraved by Lucas Vorsterman II for the Theatrum Pictorum.