Circle Dance
1635/68
Medium
Etching in black on cream laid paper
Dimensions
10.4 × 13.3 cm (4 1/8 × 5 1/4 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
80244
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The Antwerp artist David Teniers the Younger specialized in scenes of merrymaking peasants, a staple of Flemish art since the mid-16th century. Although many of his peasant scenes include a huge cast of characters, this etching depicts a more intimate gathering. Two couples have joined together in a circle, spinning and kicking their heels in the air. In this period, bagpipers often stood on barrels when playing for large crowds, but here the musician sits beside a companion. Teniers’s loose, se...
About the Artist
David Teniers the Younger · 1610–1690
David Teniers the Younger (1610–1690) was a Flemish painter who became one of the most versatile and prolific artists of the seventeenth-century Southern Netherlands, renowned for his peasant genre scenes, elegant gallery paintings, and his role as court painter and curator. Born in Antwerp, he trained under his father, David Teniers the Elder, and was influenced by Adriaen Brouwer's peasant subje...