Jacob Jordaens (1593–1678), Portrait of the Artist, Bust-Length, in a Cap, 1640s?, Oil on canvas, 56.2 x 46.7 cm, Christie’s, Old Masters Evening Sale, London, 1 July 2025
Jacob Jordaens, long overshadowed by the towering figures of Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) and Antoon van Dyck (1599–1641), came to occupy a unique position in seventeenth-century Antwerp. Unlike Rubens, whose self-portraits present a courtly image of diplomatic elegance, or van Dyck, who idealised himself in the style of the aristocracy he served, Jordaens’s approach to self-portraiture was strikingly grounded.
This self-portrait, most probably painted around 1640, coincides with a crucial moment in his life when, following the deaths of Rubens and van Dyck, he emerged as the most important painter in Antwerp. It reveals not the hauteur of a court painter, but a quietly self-assured artist at the height of his powers — prosperous, yet dignified and humble.
What sets Jordaens apart is the naturalism of his likeness and the way he rejected the overtly romanticised formulas favoured by his contemporaries. Van Dyck, for instance, consciously modelled his image on aristocratic ideals, projecting the painter as a gentleman. In contrast, Rembrandt (1606–1669) engaged in a deeply introspective and often theatrical exploration of the self, filled with pathos and psychological drama. Jordaens does neither. His self-image lacks the affectation of status or existential drama. Instead, it presents a man rooted in his family, workshop, and Antwerp’s bustling civic life.
The image of the artist that emerges is closer to that of a learned artisan than a courtly visionary. Perhaps this very realism — this refusal to inflate the myth of the self—has long made Jordaens more difficult to mythologise than Rubens or van Dyck. This is also why his portraits offer a singular counterpoint within the visual tradition of seventeenth-century self-fashioning.
