Le Roi de la fève

On Twelfth Night in 17th-century Flanders, whoever found the dried bean baked into the cake was crowned king for the evening. He picked a queen, named a court of fools and cupbearers, and every time he raised his glass the whole table had to roar back, the king drinks. Jordaens caught that exact instant: the grey-haired king mid-toast, faces flushed, a man in a jester's cap slumped against his neighbour, a child crying in the din. What looks like pure drunken chaos was in fact a religious feast, a Flemish way of marking Epiphany, the day the three kings reached Bethlehem, with the lucky bean standing in for the star that led them. Jordaens came back to this scene something like ten times, each a room-sized canvas, and he lived that world too, taking over the busy Antwerp studio next door after its master Rubens died in 1640.