Satyr and the Peasant

This painting by Jacob Jordaens stages a fable attributed to Aesop, set in sixth-century BC Greece, in which a peasant and a satyr talk on a cold day. The man blows on his fingers to warm them and later blows on his bowl of hot porridge to cool it. When the satyr, feeling mocked, declares that he can no longer count the man as a friend, since he blows both hot and cold with the same breath, Jordaens picks the moment the visitor abruptly rises to leave while the peasant pauses with his spoon. The moral concerns human duplicity, though some believe the painter was drawn above all to the rustic domestic scene.

The composition is typically Flemish: crowded figures press toward the foreground in a farmhouse shared with animals, and the family fills almost the entire space. Jordaens uses strong chiaroscuro derived from the Utrecht school, lighting the baby on the old woman's lap with particular force, while the dirty feet of the peasant show a naturalism linked to the Caravaggesque currents of the period. The work is dated around 1620–1621, and Jordaens produced at least two versions of the subject. The female model is thought to be his wife, and the picture was probably used in the studio to teach assistants and pupils, as many copies survive.

Painter

Jacob Jordaens

Date

1620

Medium

oil paint, canvas, panel

Dimensions

174 × 204 cm

Museum

Bavarian State Painting Collections, Munich

Movement

Baroque

Genre

genre art, mythological painting

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