Cleopatra's Feast

Jordaens painted Cleopatra's Feast in 1653, depicting the legendary banquet where Cleopatra dissolved a pearl in vinegar to demonstrate her wealth to Mark Antony. The subject allowed Jordaens to combine historical narrative with the lavish banquet scenes that were a specialty of Flemish Baroque painting. As the leading painter in Antwerp during his later career, Jordaens continued to produce ambitious history paintings while increasingly incorporating moralizing themes about excess and vanity.

Jordaens's robust figure style fills the composition with characteristically Flemish abundance, rendered in warm, saturated colors. The theatrical arrangement of figures around the banquet table and the rich still-life elements demonstrate his command of complex narrative composition.