14 April 2023

A new chronology for the young Jordaens and fresh insights into his early contacts with Rubens and Van Dyck

In the April issue of The Burlington Magazine, JVDPPP co-founder Joost Vander Auwera presents findings from the Jordaens and Van Dyck Panel Paintings Project that offer new information about Jacques Jordaens’s links with the studio of Rubens.

The multidisciplinary analysis presented in the article results in significant adjustments to the accepted chronology of Jordaens’s early work, in particular as it relates to his first paintings as a free master.

By 1617 Jordaens had already been a free master for two years. However, in his new workshop Rubens needed the help of accomplished painters, such as Van Dyck. There is also evidence of Jordaens’s presence in Rubens’s workshop during the same period as Van Dyck.

Pan and Syrinx by Jordeans (photos by Freya Maes and X-radiographs by Guido van de Voorde)

From around 1617 onwards, Jordaens’s paintings reveal an intimate familiarity with Rubens’s painting techniques that is evidence of his presence in Rubens’s workshop at the time he and Van Dyck were contributing under the aegis of Rubens to the Mysteries of the Rosary series in St Paul’s church, Antwerp. This association ended for Jordaens with the registration of his first apprentices in his own workshop from 1620 onwards.

The revised chronology opens important new paths into research into the collaboration between Rubens and both Jordaens and Van Dyck at the start of their careers.

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