David Teniers de Jonge, kerkganger in de Coudenbergparochie en bevoorrecht poorter te Brussel

Sint Jacob op Coudenberg in Brussels was the parish where the nobles and members of the court preferred to perform their religious duties in the seventeenth century. A few hitherto unknown passages in the archives reveal that David Teniers the Younger, court painter to Archdukes Leopold Willem and Don Juan, was well-known to the parish priests, partly because he had his children baptized there. Some influential people at court became godfathers to his children. Teniers himself and his wife frequently acted as godparents at baptisms and as witnesses at religious ceremonies in the church. Having become a member of the prestigious Confraternity of St Ildefonso, which was connected with the church, Teniers later joined its board of governors, for which he carried out minor commissions. the court painter also enjoyed close relations with the city government of Brussels, which had granted him free burgess rights in addition to some exemptions from municipal taxes.