Theatre Of Painting takes centre stage

But in 1651, when he was already established, he became court painter to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, governor of the Southern Netherlands.

Although the role removed him from low-life genre painting, it encompassed more than just painting portraits of high society.

Teniers's job was to also look after the Archduke's considerable art collection. Comprising a wealth of Italian masters (works which form the core of Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum), it is this curatorial role, and the unique work it inspired, on which this exhibition focuses.

As you'll learn here, Teniers first embarked upon documenting a small selection of the works in Leopold's collection, reproducing the paintings in a salon-like setting with the Archduke presiding among them.

But it was his Theatrum Pictorium, or the Theatre of Painting, that proved a more distinctive project. Published in 1660, the work is the first illustrated printed catalogue of a major paintings collection.

Designed to reach a greater audience than the courtly circle who enjoyed the Archduke's painted gallery interiors, the publication contained more than 240 etchings of works ranging from Titian to Mantegna and Raphael.

Teniers also painted miniature versions of each painting to use as models to ensure the accuracy of the scaled-down engravings. Although rendered rather roughly by a Northern European hand, they provide an insight into the making of the earliest catalogue.

Until Jan 21, Courtauld Institute Gallery, Somerset House, Strand WC2, daily 10am to 6pm, £5, free to £4 concs. Tel: 020 7848 2526. Tube: Temple/Charing Cross

David Teniers And The Theatre Of Painting
The Courtauld Gallery
Somerset House, Strand, WC2R 0RN