L'enlèvement d'Europe

1621–1667

His workshop: fifteen pupils in the guild records

Between 1621 and 1667 the guild registered fifteen pupils with Jordaens (the best known being Jan Boeckhorst), and six more are named in court documents; his son Jacob and his cousin Arnoldus also trained with him. His fame drew foreigners: after 1642 the Polish painter Aleksander Jan Tricius became his pupil, and in 1645 Queen Christina of Sweden meant to send her protégé Georg Waldau, but the threat of war in Flanders prevented it.

c. 1635 – 1645

Publishes prints after his own designs

Like Rubens and van Dyck, Jordaens realised that prints spread an artist's fame and on his own initiative issued 14 engravings under privilege (cum privilegio), cut by Marinus Robyn van der Goes, Schelte a Bolswert, Paulus Pontius and other Antwerp engravers. Beneath each image stood his name as inventor and a short explanation in Latin verse.

1640–1641

After Rubens's death, Antwerp's leading painter

With the deaths of Rubens in 1640 and van Dyck in 1641, Jordaens became the leading painter of Antwerp, and commissions came increasingly from abroad; Rubens's heirs asked him to finish “Perseus and Andromeda” for Philip IV. He never became a court painter: he worked mainly for wealthy townspeople and the clergy.

1645

Converts to Calvinism

Raised a Catholic, Jordaens converted to Calvinism (other accounts say only that this was towards the end of his life), yet the Catholic Church went on commissioning altarpieces from him. He belonged to the Protestant community De Brabantse Olijfberg and towards the end of his life opened his house for private services.