Workshop of Jacob Jordaens

Ridder Fernand de Wouters d'Oplinter (1868–1942), Brussels;
Thence by descent until;
Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 8 December, 2005, lot 228, where acquired by the present owner.

Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Tentoonstelling Jacob Jordaens, 1905, no. 57;
Brussels, Musée royaux des Beaux-Arts, L'Exposition Jordaens et son Atelier, 1928, no. 75.

M. Rooses, Jordaens' Leben und Werke, Stuttgart 1890, p. 287;
Album der Tentoonstelling Jacob Jordaens, Antwerp 1905, unpaginated, cat. no. 57, reproduced;
Revue des Arts, p. 12, no. 56;
L'Exposition Jordaens et son Atelier, exhibition catalogue, Brussels 1928, p. 41, cat. no. 75;
L. van Puyvelde Jordaens, Paris–Brussels 1952, p. 96 (as a copy of the Kassel painting).

Taken from Aesop's fables, this subject had great appeal to Jordaens, who painted a number of versions of it. The earliest is probably the picture in the Staatliche Gemäldegalerie, Kassel, dated to around 1620.¹ The figures, though not the setting, of the present work largely follow the Kassel picture. The theme is developed in subsequent treatments in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, and the Kunstmuseum, Gothenburg. The present picture does not closely resemble any other known autograph versions, nor the two period engravings after Jordaens of this subject. Its handling is sketch-like, despite the large-scale canvas support, and there are several pentimenti. It should therefore be considered a rapid reworking of the subject by an artist in Jordaens' workshop intent on creating a variant rather than a copy.

1. See R-A. D'Hulst, Jacob Jordaens, London 1982, p. 94, reproduced fig. 59.