The judgement of Midas in the contest between Apollo and Pan

This 1640 Judgment of Midas in the Contest between Apollo and Pan depicts the Ovidian myth where King Midas foolishly judges Pan's rustic music superior to Apollo's divine playing, earning himself donkey's ears. The subject allowed Jordaens to moralize about poor judgment while displaying mythological grandeur. Jordaens's mythological paintings belong to the great tradition of Flemish mythological painting that Rubens had established, in which the gods of antiquity inhabit a world of Flemish physicality and sensuous abundance. Like his master and model Rubens, Jordaens treated classical mythology as a vehicle for celebrating the beauty of the human body and the pleasures of the natural world, but his mythology is heavier and more earthbound than Rubens's, his gods more recognizably Antwerp burghers temporarily promoted to divine status. His command of multi-figure compositions in warm dramatic light made him one of the most sought-after painters of monumental mythological subjects in the Spanish Netherlands.

The multi-figure mythological scene demonstrates Jordaens' ability to orchestrate dramatic narrative with contrasting figure types—divine beauty versus rustic earthiness—rendered in his characteristic warm, fleshy palette.