The Satyr and the Peasant Family

This painting of the Satyr and the Peasant Family, around 1620, by Jordaens, illustrates an Aesop fable he depicted multiple times throughout his career. The story of the satyr who abandons a peasant who blows both hot and cold served as a moral about duplicity. Jordaens, who outlived both Rubens and Van Dyck to become the dominant figure in Flemish Baroque painting for the second half of the seventeenth century, was particularly celebrated for his exuberant genre subjects, especially his series on the Flemish proverb about the King of the Bean.

The rustic figures gathered around a table are rendered with Jordaens's robust naturalism. The satyr's surprised expression and the peasant family's casual humanity create a lively narrative scene.