The Card Players (oil on canvas)

Indoor tavern scenes were first painted by the short-lived Fleming, Adriaen Brouwer (1606 — 1638). Teniers took them up and made them into a speciality, but with less raucous gatherings, in lighter and more spacious settings. This example is unusual in containing a portrait-like figure looking out at us. It was imported to England by the great collector, Sir Lawrence Dundas (c.1710 — 1781), and subsequently belonged to the brewer, William McEwan (1827 — 1913), whose collection was inherited, expanded, and bequeathed to the National Trust in his memory by his daughter, Mrs. Greville, in 1942 — the first such benefaction the Trust had ever had.