Page 25 - Jordaens

(1605-1665), sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands,
and the Archduke Leopold-Wilhelm during his tenure
of the governorship of the region (1647-1656), hardly

patronised him. Philip IV might have known of his
work, but only as an assistant or associate of Rubens.
For Jordaens was one of a number of Antwerp figure
painters who worked up Rubens’ designs for paintings
to decorate the royal hunting lodge outside Madrid in

14
the 1630s, and then was considered sufficiently gifted
to be called upon by Rubens’ executors to complete
two mythological scenes destined to decorate the
Alcazár in Madrid, which had been left unfinished by
Rubens at his death. 15

In fact a painting actually designed and executed by
Jordaens had been acquired by the king, but under
Fig. 1. Jordaens, The King Drinks. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.
16
the misapprehension that it was by Rubens. This
misattribution was probably made because Jordaens chose as his setting for the Love of Cupid and Psyche the façade
17
and garden temple that stood prominently in Rubens’ property on the Wapper in Antwerp. The Archduke
Leopold-Wilhelm, en poste in the Southern Netherlands during Jordaens’ maturity, had a policy of making an
encyclopaedic collection of contemporary painting in the region. He bought only one work by Jordaens, but
18
admittedly it was his most ambitious rendering of a favourite theme, The King Drinks (Fig. 1). Here the artist

14. Jordaens was contracted to execute the Cadmus and Minerva (oil on canvas, 181 x 300 cm), Fall of the Giants (oil on canvas,
171 x 285 cm), Judgement of Midas (oil on canvas, 180 x 270 cm) and Marriage of Peleus and Thetis (oil on canvas, 181 x 288
cm). Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, inv. nos. P01713, P01539, P01551 and P01634. For more information on the
commission of the Torre de la Parada, see S. Alpers, The Decoration of the Torre de la Parada (Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard,
IX), 1971.
15. The two pictures were Andromeda Liberated by Perseus (oil on canvas, 267 x 162 cm), now in the Museo Nacional del Prado
in Madrid (inv. no. P01663), and Hercules and Antaeus (oil on canvas, 215 x 145 cm), private collection, see F. Healy in E.
McGrath ed., Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, Mythological Subjects, I, vol.1, Turnhout, 2013, Achilles to the Graces, I, p.
242, and n.17, p. 246 under no. 14, II, fig 155.
16. Oil on canvas, 131 x 127 cm. Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, inv. no. P01823.
17. Oil on canvas, 131 x 127 cm. Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, inv. no. P01548.

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Detail of Plate 1