_David Teniers_ (Flemish: 1610-1694). _See_ 154.
So the picture is usually called, but the subject seems rather to be
a pilgrimage to some holy shrine or miraculous well. A cross is seen
on the right; the priest in charge of the pilgrimage stands somewhat
lower down; on the left is a man selling little memorial flags with
crosses on them. The hungry travellers are waiting for the meal which
is being prepared for them in several huge cauldrons. The town of
Antwerp is seen in the distance. This picture, dated 1643, is among the
best works of Teniers, and includes 150 figures. "Truth in physiognomy,
distribution of groups, the beautiful effect of light and shade,
command," says Hymans, "our warmest admiration." In the foreground are
Teniers and his party, with his little boy leading a greyhound, and the
girl of this party is almost the only pleasant face in the picture.
The painter, one begins to suspect, had not much real sympathy with
his "village scenes" after all; and perhaps the demand for such scenes
on the part of his aristocratic patrons was only a kind of vicarious
"slumming"--an anticipation of the fashionable craze of a later age.