JORDAENS, JACOB. — Painter, born in Antwerp on 19 May 1593, died there on 18 October 1678. In 1607 he entered the workshop of the painter Adam Van Noorts. His first known work dates from 1617, a Crucifixion; from 1618 dates the Adoration of the Shepherds in Stockholm, bearing his signature and autograph date, as do almost all his subsequent works. It is known that in 1621 he was elected dean of the city’s painters’ guild and must have been in close relations with Rubens, with whom he collaborated in 1634–35 on the erection of the triumphal arch for the entry into the city of Cardinal Ferdinando.
His fame grew rapidly; he maintained a large workshop, and after Rubens’s death he came to be regarded as the foremost painter of the southern Netherlands, so that he received numerous commissions from churches and private individuals, for whom he executed large altarpieces, mythological and historical scenes, allegories, and designs for carpets, tapestries, and textiles. After Rubens and Van Dyck, J. is the third great painter of the Antwerp school. In the works of his early period, such as the Adoration of the Shepherds in Stockholm, illuminated by a sharp, penetrating light, he already reveals that distinctive phosphorescent luminism of his that would characterize the works of his final period (Susanna and the Elders, 1651; Jesus among the Doctors, 1663, now in Mainz), whereas the works of his mature period are deeply influenced by Rubens’s manner. In the small genre paintings scattered throughout nearly all the collections of Europe, J. displays a particular taste for genre subjects and for illustrating proverbs with scenes drawn from popular life, which he also frequently introduces into religious compositions.