Entry
The present series of paintings was initially catalogued by the museum as by Frans Francken II (1581-1642), an attribution which was still maintained in the 1976 illustrated catalogue. However, the cabinet’s decorations were rightly not included in Härting’s catalogue raisonné of the work of that artist, and the paintings are clearly not his work. They appear to be by two hands, one executing the figures and animals, the other the landscapes. The treatment of the latter seems fairly routine, the style being reminiscent of Jan Wildens (1584/86-1653). However, the figures and animals seem peculiar to Hans Jordaens III and are most likely by him, as a comparison with his signed series of the Story of Noah’s Ark decorating a cabinet in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dunkirk, bears out, notwithstanding Fabri’s doubts about the latter work. Jordaens’s painted oeuvre has not been studied in any detail and his participation in the production of cabinets even less so, but in reference to this last activity there is a record of an ébénist (i.e. a cabinet-maker) having delivered in a consignment of 1645 ‘een cabinet van Jordaens’. Baarsen dates the present cabinet, qua cabinet, circa 1650; Jordaens died in 1643, from which it is clear that his paintings should be considered late work, as Härting supposed the Dunkirk Story of Noah’s Ark to be.
The present paintings are rather cursorily executed – although there are pentiments in the outline of the mountain on the lid, in the foot and hand of the murdered Cain and perhaps in the left hand of Adam in the Creation – and the compositions are not ambitious. As will be clear from the commentary below, Jordaens seems chiefly to have depended on Bernard Salomon’s (1506-1561) popular illustrations to the Bible, published in several languages nearly a hundred years earlier than the presumed date of his contribution to this cabinet. No confessional distinction was made by publishers in their choice of illustrations for Bibles; Christophe Plantin (1520-1584) had used Salomon’s illustrations at second-hand for his Bible of 1566. Jordaens’s likely additional references to Virgil Solis (1514-1562) and to Johannes Wierix’s (1549-c. 1620) prized penschilderijen emphasizes his traditional approach, which should not necessarily be seen as unresourceful or unadventurous if Rubens’s references to Bernard Salomon’s illustrations to Ovid’s Metamorphoses when designing scenes for the decoration of the Torre de la Parada, circa 1636, are borne in mind. Jordaens’s fluent but perfunctory delineation of the animals in the Garden of Eden and the restricted colour range may suggest his awareness that the remuneration for this work was not going to be generous.
The series depicts the diurnal events in the Biblical account of the creation and then episodes in the early history of man. The physical make-up of the cabinet does not permit a coherent, chronological sequence of the narrative. Below, the sequence of episodes in the Bible is set out with quotations from the Book of Genesis in the Vulgate and in the King James authorized translation (where the verse numberings do not always correspond).
The central doors (left, approx. 20.2 x 9.4 cm, right 20.2 x 9.5 cm): The Fourth Day of Creation, Genesis 1:14-19, in particular 16-17: ‘fecitque Deus duo magna luminaria luminare maius ut praeesset diei et luminare minus et praeesset nocti et stellas et posuit eas in firmamento caeli ut lucerent super terram’ (And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth). Because of the exigency of having to decorate both doors, God is shown twice, in mirror image. He stands on clouds, but not above a landscape (on the third day God had created the vegetation of the earth) as in Jan Sadeler’s (1550-1600) print after the design by Maerten de Vos (1532-1603) of circa 1586, perhaps because of insufficient space. But God’s gestures in this print are here followed. The yellow band running continuously across both supports may have been adopted from a print by Johannes Wierix, where it was the field allocated for the signs of the zodiac. The characteristics of God, established here for the whole series, are ultimately derived from Raphael (1483-1530) and made known internationally by an anonymous print God Creating the Animals. But the colouring of yellow/brown hair, grey tunic and red cloak was no doubt due to Jordaens.
The lid (approx. 28.4 x 76 cm): The Fifth and Sixth Days of Creation, Genesis 1:20 and 25: ‘dixit etiam Deus producant aquae reptile animae viventis et volatile super terram sub firmamento caeli … dixit quoque Deus producat terra animam viventem in genere suo iumenta et reptilia et bestias terrae secundum species suas’ (And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth … And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing). Rather than treating the creation of birds and fish and animals separately, Jordaens has here followed the print by Peeter van der Borcht I (1530-1611) in the Moerentorf (Moretus) Bible of 1599, where God is shown creating the fish of the sea to his right, and the terrestrial animals to his left. The lion and lioness beside the figure of God derive ultimately from Rubens’s formulation in the Washington Daniel in the Lions’ Den, which was disseminated by Jan Brueghel I’s (1568-1625) depictions of The Entry of the Animals into Noah’s Ark of 1613, as well as subsequent versions and related works. The forequarters of the cow may have been inspired by a comparable feature in the same pictures. The rearing grey (horse) may also stem from another source, not yet identified, influenced by a pose derived from Rubens, for instance, that of the bay (horse) on the right in the Munich Hippopotamus and Crocodile Hunt.
The drawer, top row, left (approx. 9.3 x 22.9 cm): The Creation of Adam, Genesis 2:7: ‘formavit igitur Dominus Deus hominem in limo terrae’ (And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground). The formulation of Adam lying before God may well have been suggested by the first print by Bernard Salomon in Quadrins historiques de la Bible of 1553.
The drawer, top row, centre (approx. 12.4 x 10.5 cm): Adam Given Life, Genesis 2:7: ‘et inspiravit in faciam eius spiraculum vitae et factus est homo in animam viventem’ (and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul). For the motif of God leaning over and breathing at Adam, Jordaens seems to have followed the print by Salomon in his illustrated Bible.
The drawer, top row, right (approx. 9.2 x 22.9 cm): The Creation of Eve, Genesis 2:21-22: ‘inmisit ergo Dominus Deus soporem in Adam cumque obdormisset tulit unam de costis eius … et aedificavit Dominus Deus costam quam tulerat de Adam in mulierem et adduxit eam ad Adam’ (And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs … And the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man). Salomon’s print in his illustrated Bible seems to have been the source for Jordaens’s rendering.
The wing on the left (approx. 46.5 x 38.3 cm): God’s admonition, Genesis 3:3: ‘de fructu vero ligni quod est in medio paradisi praecepit nobis Deus ne comederemus et ne tangeremus illud ne forte moriamur’ (But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die). Here Jordaens was probably inspired by a detail in a print by Virgil Solis, published in the Virgil Solisbijbel of 1565.
The wing on the right (approx. 46.5 x 38.3 cm): The Temptation of Adam, Genesis 3:6: ‘vidit igitur mulier quod bonum esset lignum ad vescendum et pulchrum oculis aspectuque delectabile et tulit de fructu illius et comedit deditque viro suo’ (And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired … she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and she gave also her husband with her). Jordaens seems to have adopted an archaizing, static interpretation reminiscent of fifteenth-century Netherlandish depictions of the scene, as for instance in the left-hand wing of Hieronymus Bosch’s (c. 1430-1516) triptych of the Hay Waggon, and seems to have combined this with a reliance on a formulation in a penschilderij by Johannes Wierix. Jordaens has made little attempt at depicting the animals in detail, but he does show Adam reaching out with his left hand though not to grasp a branch as in Wierix’s image.
The drawer, second row, left (approx. 9.4 x 22.8 cm): The Shame of Adam and Eve, Genesis 3:7: ‘et aperti sunt oculi amborum cumque cognovissent esse se nudos consuerunt folia ficus et fecerunt sibi perizomata’ (And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons). Jordaens here followed Salomon’s print of 1553 for the main scene.
The drawer, second row, right (approx. 9.2 x 23 cm): Adam and Eve Hiding from God, Genesis 3:8 (9): ‘et cum audissent vocem Domini Dei deambulantis in paradiso ad auram post meridiem abscondit se Adam et uxor eius a facie Domini Dei in medio ligni paradisi vocavitque Dominus Deus Adam et dixit ei ubi es’ (And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day; and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?). The 1553 print by Salomon seems to have inspired the disposition of the figures.
The drawer, third row, left (approx. 9.4 x 22.8 cm): The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, Genesis 3:23-24: ‘emisit eum Dominus Deus de paradiso voluptatis ut operaretur terram de qua sumptus est eiecitque Adam’ (Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man). Wierix’s disposition of Adam and Eve as set out in a penschilderij may have been Jordaens’s source, although Wierix shows the figures more from behind and only has Adam looking back at the angel.
The drawer, third row, right (approx. 9.2 x 23 cm): Adam Tilling the Earth, Genesis 3:17-19 and 4:1-2: ‘in laboribus comedes eam cunctis diebus vitae tuae … in sudore vultus tui vesceris pane …Adam vero cognovit Havam … quae concepit et peperit Cain … rursusque peperit fratrem eius Abel’ (in sorrow shalt thou eat of it [the ground] all the days of thy life … In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread … And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bore Cain … And she again bore his brother Abel). Jordaens has here simplified the rendering of the scene by Wierix in a penschilderij, in which Eve is shown seated with her children in a similar shed. But for the figure of Adam digging, Jordaens turned to a print by Jan Saenredam (1565-1607) after Abraham Bloemaert (1566-1651) of 1604.
The central drawers, bottom row, The Sacrifice of Cain (left, approx. 7.3 x 14.8 cm) and The Sacrifice of Abel (right, approx. 7.3 x 15 cm): Genesis 4:3-5: ‘factum est autem post multos dies ut offerret Cain de fructibus terrae munera Domino Abel quoque obtulit de primogenitis gregis sui et de adipibus eorum et respexit Dominus ad Abel et ad munera eius ad Cain vero et ad munera illius non respexit’ (And in the process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: but unto Cain and to his offering he had no respect). Following the traditional analogy with Elijah’s offering to God in 1 Kings 18:38, God’s favour of Abel’s sacrifice is shown by the smoke rising upwards, while that of Cain is driven downwards to show his disparagement.
The drawer, bottom row, left (approx. 9.1 x 22.9 cm): Cain Slaying Abel, Genesis 4:8: ‘cumque essent in agro consurrexit Cain adversus Abel fratrem suum et interfecit eum’ (and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him.). Here Jordaens has had recourse to Salomon’s print in his illustrated Bible and simplified it.
The drawer, bottom row, right (approx. 9.1 x 22.9 cm): Cain leaving the presence of God, Genesis 4: 9, 11 and 16: ‘et ait Dominus ad Cain … nunc igitur maledictus eris super terram … egressusque Cain a facie Domini’ (And the Lord said unto Cain … now art thou cursed from the earth … And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord).
Gregory Martin, 2022