Supper at the House of Burgomaster Rockox

Nicolaas Rockox served Antwerp several times as burgomaster and was one of Rubens's earliest patrons once the painter came home from Italy. He also owned one of the finest art collections in the city, and here, around 1630 to 1635, Frans Francken shows a party in his house. The cheerful company stands, the Alte Pinakothek explains, for the five senses, taste, hearing, smell, sight and touch. Over the fireplace hangs Rubens's Samson and Delilah, painted for Rockox and for that very spot. The little picture within the picture has had a life of its own. The Samson was sold after Rockox died in 1640 and then lost from view, and the canvas in the National Gallery in London has been doubted by some specialists ever since the museum bought it in 1980. Those doubters point to Francken's panel, where Samson's foot sits wholly inside the frame.