This is an overdue investigation into one of the most remarkable artistic enterprises of the seventeenth century, David Teniers the Younger's publication in 1660 of the magnificent Theatrum Pictorium or Theatre of Painting, the first illustrated and printed collection catalogue. This book provides a detailed and richly layered account of this extraordinary project. In 1651, David Teniers (1610?1690) was appointed painter to the Brussels court of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, Governor of the Hapsburg Netherlands and owner of one of the finest princely collections in Europe, which now forms the core of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Teniers first documented this collection in a series of detailed views of the interior of the Archduke's picture gallery. But his far more ambitious project was a lavishly illustrated single-volume catalogue of 243 of the Archduke's Italian paintings. Fundamental to the project was Tenier's production of small copies in oil of each of the selected paintings for use by the Theatrum's engravers, many of which are illustrated in this book.
