Group portrait at a balustrade (Allegory of the five senses)

Group Portrait at a Balustrade, also known as Allegory of the Five Senses, combines two popular Baroque genres — the formal group portrait and the allegorical depiction of the senses — into a single canvas of unusual ambition. Painted around 1650, the work reflects Jordaens's sustained interest in embedding symbolic content within realistic portraiture. The five senses — sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch — had been a staple subject in Flemish art since Jan Brueghel and Rubens produced their celebrated series, but Jordaens adapts the theme by distributing the sensory attributes among identifiable portrait sitters gathered at a stone balustrade. This architectural framing device, common in portraiture of the period, suggests a threshold between the viewer's space and the painted world. The blending of allegory and portraiture allowed patrons to commission works with both social prestige (the group portrait) and intellectual currency (the allegorical programme). The painting's current location is unrecorded, suggesting it passed through private collections without entering a major public institution.

Jordaens balances the competing demands of portraiture — faithful likeness — with the allegorical programme's need for symbolic props and gestures. The balustrade provides a spatial anchor dividing foreground figures from a deeper landscape behind. Paint handling is confident and mature, with faces receiving the most refined treatment while background areas are more broadly brushed.