As the Old Sing, So Pipe the Young

Jordaens came to this canvas twice. The museum dates a first campaign to around 1632 and a second to 1646, some 14 years later. That puts its beginning several years before the version in Antwerp, dated 1638, which the museum there counts as the start of his long series on this proverb. In 1989 the Munich art historian Konrad Renger used technical examination to follow the changes Jordaens made to the composition here, and in a large feast of his in Kassel. What the two campaigns left is a table where everyone has plainly been drinking. The museum points to the dog eyeing the waffles, a picture of appetite, and to the two children, one of whom drinks from a wine glass just like the grown-ups. The parrot belongs to the same lesson, a bird known for repeating good and bad alike without a thought.