Page 37 - Jordaens

Thus two of Jordaens’ most startling creations, Odysseus in the Cave of Polyphemus and Odysseus and Nausicaa, seem
to have been rejected. The first was to catch Rubens’ eye, for it was probably that listed as part of his collection
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to be put up for sale after his death in 1640. Of the versions of Odysseus and Nausicaa, in which the shipwrecked
Odysseus kneels nearly naked in front of Nausicaa and her handmaidens before the tree beneath which he had
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slept, that in the Noordbrabants Museum is quite abbreviated, whereas both a fully worked up painting and
the two finished cartoons mentioned above are of a far more ambitious description of the episode.

a

f the subjects that were woven,
two were particularly complex and

Oambitious, but when Carlo Emmanuele
Fig. 9. Jordaens, Cartoon for The Meeting of Odysseus and Nausicaä. Private Collection, Switzerland
and his wife planned the room for which they
were destined both were mutilated to fit the
Jordaens, who in one of his earliest paintings had already shown himself to be a precise interpreter of his sources - available space. Telemachus leading Theoklymenos to
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his unusual and inventive Apotheosis of Aeneas (Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst) follows Ovid’s account his Mother was divided into two separate pieces,
in the Metamorphoses - had a whole series of dramatic incidents in the twenty-four books of Homer’s epic to while about a third of the composition showing

choose from. In the event, scenes from books V, X, XIII and XVII completed the whole process of production Odysseus in the Court of Alcinous (Fig. 10) was
from his studio via the weaver’s workshop to the walls of the ducal palace in Turin. Surprisingly, two of these did omitted. Hermes at Calypso’s Table as planned by
not involve Odysseus directly. A further five subjects from books VI, IX, X, XIII were sketched and or worked Jordaens had fewer figures and was less complex
up by Jordaens, but were apparently discarded by the weavers. in its setting, but its composition too was reduced
in order to accommodate the requirements of the

Duke and Duchess.
38. Oil on canvas, 212.5 x 236 cm. Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst, inv. no. KMS1310a.
39. See K. Nelson, ‘Jacob Jordaens: Design for Tapestry’ (Pictura Nova, V), 1998, p. 73, no. 7b.
40. Oil on canvas, 107.5 x 153 cm. Den Bosch, Noordbrabants Museum, inv. no. 15.296. See K. Nelson, ‘Jacob Jordaens: Design Although Odysseus is not present, this scene,
for Tapestry’, (Pictura Nova, V), 1998, p. 80, no. 12b. the penultimate of the hero’s lengthy staging
41. This picture was unknown until 2012, when it was auctioned by Christie’s, London, 4 December 2012, lot 18; it was offered
by descendants of William Burn Callander (1792-1854) of Preston Hall, Midlothian The picture was acquired by the Broere posts on his return to his native land, is the first Fig. 10. Van der Strecken and Van Leefdael after Jordaens, Ulysses at
Charitable Foundation and is now on loan to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. that directly concerned his predicament to be the Court of Alcinous. Rome, Palazzo del Quirinale.

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