Painting Detail
Bean KingArtist: Jacob Jordaens
Medium: Painting, Oil on canvas, 157x211 cm
Date: c. 1638
Genre: Genre Painting
Source: Museum of the Academy of Arts, Petrograd, 1922
The composition of this version did not remain fixed from the beginning. Over some 15 or 20 years, the pictorial surface was extended with several strips of canvas, recognisable by the seams. In this way Jordaens made room for the two couples on the left, extrapolating from the boisterous merrymaking of the central group to illustrate two specific consequences of drinking alcohol. While the helpless old man embodies the vice of lethargy, the amorous frenzy of the younger exemplifies unchastity. But it is the dog in the foreground that really encapsulates the bad end the party is to come to. In less than a moment, the cutlery and glassware from the falling basket will hit the floor with a crash and a tinkle, startling the assembled guests.
The Hermitage possesses one of the best versions of The Bean King. The subject is the traditional Netherlandish feast on January 6, the Day of the Three Kings or Magi, who came, according to the Gospels, to worship the Christ Child. Traditionally, a pie containing a bean was baked for the festivities, and he who found the bean in his piece of pie became Bean King. In this picture Jordaens showed the most joyful and noisy moment of the feast. Rich colouring and dynamic gestures emphasize the air of festivity.
Jacob Jordaens (19 May 1593 - 18 October 1678) was one of three Flemish Baroque painters, along with Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, to bring prestige to the Antwerp school of painting. Unlike those contemporaries he never traveled abroad to study Italian painting, and his career is marked by an indifference to their intellectual and courtly aspirations.