Allegorie der Fruchtbarkeit

Jordaens painted this in Antwerp around 1623, when he was about thirty and only a few years into working as his own master. The city's river, the Scheldt, had been closed to seagoing trade for a generation, and its great harbour was quiet. Here he answers with the opposite of scarcity: a cornucopia spilling fruit and grain, ringed by nymphs, satyrs and shepherds pressing in from every side. He builds the whole scene from real weight, heavy limbs and ripe skin, the figures leaning into unusual, almost off-balance poses rather than posing for the viewer. The canvas is large, nearly two and a half metres tall, and the abundance is meant to overwhelm. Antwerp let it go, and the museum in Brussels bought it in 1827.