Concord, Charity and Sincerity Conquering Discord

Janssens's allegory of Concord, Charity and Sincerity Conquering Discord, dated 1622 and in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, was produced late in his career when Antwerp's fortunes under the Archdukes Albert and Isabella were somewhat stabilized. The allegory of civic virtues defeating Discord was a standard formula for celebrating political harmony under legitimate rule. Janssens personifies three positive virtues as female figures actively subduing a fallen Discord — whose disheveled form and writhing position encode moral defeat. The work belongs to the same tradition of civic virtue allegory as his earlier Scaldis and Antverpia but applies the formula to more abstract theological-philosophical categories. By 1622 Rubens had thoroughly dominated the Antwerp market, but Janssens maintained a practice producing precisely the kind of monumental allegorical work the Archducal court required.

Panel with three victorious allegorical figures in dynamic action above a defeated Discord in the lower foreground. The vertical organization — virtues triumphing above, vice defeated below — is a standard compositional convention for victory allegories. Each virtue carries identifying attributes: Concord's clasped hands, Charity's children, Sincerity's open book or heart. Discord below is shown with disordered attributes: broken instruments, scattered weapons, a serpentine posture. Warm, triumphant light falls on the virtues while Discord occupies colder shadow.