Collaboration or Appropriation? Examining a 17th c. Panel by David Teniers the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Younger Usin
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1047-Y07-01
Collaboration or Appropriation? Examining a 17th c. Panel by David Teniers the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Younger Using Confocal X-Ray Fluorescence Microscopy Jennifer L. Mass1, Arthur R. Woll2, Noelle Ocon3, Christina Bisulca4, Tomasz Wazny5, Carol B. Griggs5, and Matt Cushman6 1 Conservation Department, Winterthur Museum, 5105 Kennett Pike, Winterthur, DE, 19735 2 Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source, Cornell University, 200L Wilson Laboratory, Ithaca, NY, 14853 3 Conservation Department, North Carolina Museum of Art, 2110 Blue Ridge Road, Raleigh, NC, 27607 4 Conservation and Scientific Research, Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 20560 5 Cornell Tree-Ring Laboratory, Cornell University, B48 Goldwin Smith Hall, Ithaca, NY, 14853 6 Williamstown Art Conservation Center, 225 South Street, Williamstown, MA, 01267 ABSTRACT This paper presents the results of a multidisciplinary investigation of The Armorer’s Shop (North Carolina Museum of Art), a 17th century painting on panel attributed to David Teniers the Younger of Flanders. The study was motivated by x-radiographic observations suggesting an atypical panel construction and by the discovery that the armor depicted in this painting is nearly identical to that of several other works, all but one of which are attributed to Jan Brueghel the Younger, a contemporary Flemish master and relative of Teniers. Stylistic analysis strongly supports the hypothesis that Teniers painted the background, figures and objects depicted around the armor, and that Brueghel completed the armor itself. A broad range of materials analysis techniques, including cross-section microanalysis, dendrochronology, and confocal x-ray fluorescence microscopy (CXRF), were used to establish whether the panel construction and palette composition are consistent with this hypothesis. Dendrochronology shows that the panel was fabricated from three distinct wood planks, and suggests that the smallest of these, the armor plank, was painted approximately twenty years before the other two. CXRF demonstrates that this plank was painted before being attached to the other two. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first report of a painting being re-used in this way, and the first evidence of collaboration between these two painters. INTRODUCTION The Armorer’s Shop, by David Teniers the Younger (figure 1) depicts in its foreground a seated armorer and a richly detailed pile of parade armor. A 1946 article identifies most of this armor, some of which is still exhibited today in Vienna, Brussels, and Krakow [1]. The middle ground depicts several workers at a forge, above which hangs a dragon, a symbol for alchemy. The painting is signed D. Teniers on the log upon which the armorer sits. During a visual examination of the painting, the panel was found to have a highly unusual construction.
Figure 1. The Armorer's Shop, attributed to David Teniers the Younger, 56.5×80.7 cm2, oil on panel, NCMA. The long solid lines indicate the interface between the armor-containing pla
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