The Satyr and the Peasant

This 1615 Satyr and the Peasant is among Jordaens' earliest treatments of his most famous subject, derived from Aesop's fable about a satyr who refuses a man's hospitality after seeing him blow both hot and cold. Jordaens painted this theme at least a dozen times throughout his career, making it virtually his signature composition. 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 early version already displays Jordaens' distinctive approach to the subject—robust, earthy figures gathered around a table, rendered with warm flesh tones and direct characterization that emphasize the human comedy of the fable.