Jacob Jordaens

Jacob Jordaens Diana and Callisto Oil on wood. 53.5 x 75.2 cm. Expertise Prof. Dr. Roger-Adolf d'Hulst, 14.11.1967. Provenance Galerie Brunner, Paris (red wax seal of the gallery on the reverse of the panel) Private collection, Kortrijk (Courtrai), Belgium, 1960 - Acquired by the current owner in 2010. Exhibitions Jordaens and Antiquity, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, 12.10.2012 - 27.1.2013 and Museumslandschaft Hessen-Kassel, Kassel, 1.3. - 16.6.2013, no. 87. Literature R-A d'Hulst: Enkele onbekende schilderijen van Jakob Jordaens, in: Gentse Bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis en de Oudheidlunde, XIX, 1961-1966, p. 90, fig. 8 - R.-A. d'Hulst: Jacob Jordaens, Antwerp, 1982, p.335, footnote 56 and p. 345 - Irene Schaudies: Monumental Cabinet Pieces, in: exhibition catalog Jordaens and the Antique, Brussels, 2012, pp. 231-247, no. 87, p. 237, w. ill.- Hans Vlieghe: Jordaens and the Antique, in: The Burlington Magazine, January 2013, pp. 58-59. - Michel Ceuterick: Jordaens and the Antique, in: Historians of Netherlandish Art Reviews, November 2013. . - Jordaens Van Dyck Panel Paintings Project (JVDPPP): www.jordaensvandyck.com (results of the dendrological study of the painting carried out in 2018). Jordaens' painting "Diana and Callisto" was made known to a wider public through the exhibition "Jordaens and Antiquity" in Brussels and Kassel in 2013. It is a late work by the master that can be dated to the 1670s, as recent technological investigations by the Jordaens Van Dyck Panel Paintings Project (JVDPPP) have revealed. The panel painting, which has long been in private ownership in Belgium, bears a wax seal from the renowned Parisian gallery Charles Brunner, which existed until 1925. Irene Schaudies published the painting in her catalog article "Monumental Cabinet Pieces" together with other paintings from the 1640s. Although not small or medium format, these use proportions and themes "typical of cabinet pieces - figures that appear rather small in comparison to the picture surface and mythological scenes embedded in atmospheric landscapes". (exhib. cat. "Jordaens and Antiquity", 2013, p. 232). What all the paintings have in common is Jordaens' engagement with antiquity and the Italian Renaissance. Although Jordaens had never been to Italy, he found access to Italian art through his patron Rubens. The theme of Diana discovering the pregnancy of her unchaste nymph Callisto was popular in Flemish painting and was often depicted by Hendrick van Balen (1575-1632), the cabinet painter admired by Jordaens. However, Jordaens based his composition on a copy by Rubens after Titian's painting "Diana and Callisto" and borrowed some of his female figures from it (see I. Schaudies, in: exhib. cat. 2013, p. 237). A pictorial invention by Titian is also the source of inspiration for another painting by Jordaens, "Diana and Actaeon", which is in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, in Dresden (fig. 1; inv. no. 999). At 53.5 x 75.5 cm, this painting has almost identical dimensions. The thematic context also allows the assumption that it could be the counterpart to the present work. The painting "Nymphs Cutting Pan's Beard" (The Hague, Mauritshuis, inv. no. 849) was also thought to be a counterpart to "Diana and Callisto", although neither the format, subject nor composition match. Jordaens depicted the present subject in another, closely related version with larger dimensions (81 x 120 cm) (fig. 2). This painting "Diana and Callisto" is painted on canvas and is in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, Madrid (inv. no. 1427). Several preparatory drawings can be directly related to the group of figures around Callisto. One of these is in the National Gallery in Edinburgh and another in the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam. We would like to thank Dr. Joost Vander Auwera, director of the JVDPPP, for advice on the editing of this catalog text.