foreground are portraits of Teniers and
the Archduke Leopold William, who are represented as conversing with each
other.

Teniers reached his excellence early in life, and was but twenty-two years
old when he was admitted to the Guild of Painters at Antwerp. That Rubens
was his friend is proved by the fact that when Teniers married the
daughter of Jan Breughel, in 1637, that great master was one of the
witnesses to the ceremony. In 1656 he married his second wife, the
daughter of the Secretary of State for Brabant. By his artistic and
personal merits Teniers gained a higher place in society than was ever
held by any other _genre_ painter of the Flemish or Dutch schools. He was
eighty-four years old when he died, and was active and industrious up to
the close of his life.

Although Teniers had such good fortune during his life, I fancy he would
have been surprised if he could have known what his fame would be now, or
what prices would be paid for his pictures about two centuries after his
death. The "Flemish Kermes" was bought for the Brussels Museum in 1867 for
twenty-five thousand dollars, and at the San Donato sale, in 1880, the
"Prodigal Son" sold for sixteen thousand two hundred dollars, and the
"Five Senses" for fifteen thousand dollars. It is difficult to distinguish
the etchings of the son from those of the father, David Teniers the elder,
though it is well known that the son executed such works.

GERARD HONTHORST (1592-1660) was also a painter of _genre_ scenes, and
many of his works had figures of life size. His chief distinction,
however, was that of painting the effects of artificial lights. He was
famous in England and Italy as well as in his own country, and the
Italians called him "_Gherardo della Notte_," or Gerard of the Night,
because he painted so many night-scenes lighted by candles, lamps, and
torches.

Then there was a class of Dutch artists who represented the interiors of
fine houses--rooms with all sorts of beautiful furniture and ornaments,
with ladies and gentlemen in splendid costumes. They tried to show the
effects of light upon satins, glass, metals, and other shining objects.
They painted with great care, and finished their pictures in the most
perfect manner. GERHARD TERBURG (1608-1681), GERHARD DOW (1613-1675), and
GABRIEL METSU (1615-after 1667) were all remarkable for works of this
kind.

PIETER DE HOOGE, who worked from 1628 to 1671, and of whose life little is
known, painted sim