The King Drinks
Copy after Jacob Jordaens Flemish
Not on view
This drawing, most likely by a student or studio member
of Jordaens’s workshop, combines two Flemish themes of
families feasting that Jordaens explored in multiple versions
late in his career. This domestic interior relates to popular
representations of the Twelfth Night banquet. To celebrate
the arrival of the Three Kings, families would often gather
for a sumptuous meal, crowning a man king for a night.
Characterized by uncouth behavior, such images often
carried a moralizing warning against excess. This drawing
shows a more restrained gathering, which suggests it also
illustrates the whimsical secular proverb “As the Old Sing,
So the Young Twitter.”
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