Self-Portrait with Parents, Brothers and Sisters

Around 1615 Jordaens was barely into his twenties, newly a master in the Antwerp painters' guild and not yet the famous name he would become. He set himself into this large family group at the left edge, holding a lute, beside his parents and a crowd of brothers and sisters. His father was a linen merchant, and the rich clothes and the well-set table say plainly how the family wished to be seen. The lute he holds was a familiar shorthand in Flemish family portraits for a household living in harmony. Catherine the Great bought the picture for the Hermitage in 1779, and it has hung in Saint Petersburg ever since.