Description of the picture:
The painter in his workshop is David Teniers the Younger. 1641. Oil on wood. 25.5×25.1
At one time, the work was called a self-portrait of Teniers (Smolskaya 1962). Although the assumption is currently not confirmed, the picture is largely autobiographical. In any case, Teniers’s ideas about the genre artist of his time were expressed in it. An unpretentious and squat figure, short, hardened hands with thumbs are striking. But at the same time, one can see how cleverly these hands hold brushes and a palette with paints, which the depicted, apparently, is fluent in. The artist’s face is rustic, but glows with sincere benevolence. On this contrast between the external unattractiveness and the internal beauty of the creative personality, the image of the Teniers painter is built.
In the early subscription Self-Portrait, an apprentice sitting behind an easel with his back to the viewer is depicted in the background. A similar figure of the student is visible in this picture. She repeats the composition of “Self-portrait” in mirror image, however, the faces of the painters in the two portraits being compared noticeably differ from each other."