Pan Punished by Nymphs

Entry

The attribution to Jacob Jordaens of Pan Punished by Nymphs has not been doubted (except in the Rijksmuseum’s inventory book); the date of execution is now generally placed circa 1640,⁸ which agrees with the likely date of the recto of a sheet, whose verso was used in preparation for the present work (see below).

In 1987 Wyss⁹ argued persuasively that the subject is not, as was previously assumed, Marsyas punished by the Muses on the orders of Apollo as told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses,¹⁰ but Pan punished by nymphs, a story told in the Imagines by Philostratus the Elder. This could have been known to Jordaens through Blaise de Vigenère’s (1547-1596) French translation perhaps in its 1629 edition, one of eight published between 1578 and 1637.¹¹ The nymphs are punishing Pan for his boorish dancing, having captured him as he slept after the chase: ‘… he is extremely angry because the nymphs have fallen upon him and tied his hands behind his back … His beard which he values so highly has been cut off with little knives.’¹² Philostratus distinguished between the Naiads ‘shaking drops of water from their beautiful tresses’ and the ‘rustic pastoral nymphs’. This Jordaens may have followed by placing them in the two distinct groupings, with four figures by the pool on the left intended for the Naiads.¹³ Jordaens initially gave a gloss to the text by showing Pan in a drunken sleep; he inscribed the sheet on which he first sketched ideas for the composition: ‘Drunken Pan sleeps … the nymphs cut … beard’ (Pan droncken slape … de nimphen scheren …baerd).¹⁴ In the painting Jordaens introduced Apollo to direct the scene; this god, Pan’s old adversary, does not appear in Philostratus’s account.

Jordaens rapidly sketched his first ideas for the painting on this sheet which he had folded in two; the recto showed ‘a facade with a portico and loggia’ which D’Hulst associated with Jordaens’s building of a new house in Antwerp, the facade of which is dated 1641.¹⁵ His first idea for the Pan composition was to show the god asleep on the ground, with a nymph bending over him to hold his head; other naked companions attend to the left. He then reversed the sheet, and depicted Pan, facing right, seated on the ground with his hands tied behind his back as his bearded head is pulled back by a seated nymph behind him. Her fellows are gathered about, one in a pose later used in the painting for the standing nymph in the centre of the group on the left. It was this, second consideration of the story that Jordaens inscribed with the partially legible commentary, which in fact is more apposite for his first idea.

Two cosmetic alterations to drapery (one – revealing – to the seated nymph in the centre middle ground, the other to that on the legs of the nymph cutting Pan’s beard), and the suppression of a nymph half-length beneath Apollo shows Jordaens’s spontaneous attitude to his predetermined plan. The composition is evidence of his inventive powers; but influential may have been Rubens’s near contemporary Nymphs and Satyrs reworked circa 1638 (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid) which was retained and sold after his death to King Philip IV of Spain (1605-1665).¹⁶ That Jordaens had access to Rubens’s studio during the execution of the Torre de la Parada commission in which he participated circa 1637¹⁷ is likely, and the same would have occurred after Rubens’s death when he completed paintings at the request of Rubens’s executors.¹⁸ Thus while the pose of the nymph cutting Pan’s beard recalls that of Adastrea in his Infant Jupiter Fed by the Goat Amalthea (Musée du Louvre),¹⁹ the disposition of her legs may have been suggested by that of the nymph in the centre of the Rubens (whose pose was derived from the antique).²⁰ Other connections are the seated nymph seen from the back and the pointing nymph in the Jordaens and the seated nymph on the left in the Rubens and right in the Jordaens, whose raised right arm may ultimately derive from the Venus in Raphael’s Venus with Juno and Ceres in the Loggia di Psiche at the Villa Farnesina, Rome.²¹

Some other poses also connect with those previously devised by Jordaens. The figure of Apollo is repeated with differences in the drapery in his drawing of the Contest of Apollo and Pan in the British Museum.²² The nymph beside Apollo, seated by the tree, is repeated but in full length as Diana in the composite drawing of Diana and Callisto in the Albertina, Vienna.²³ The nymph holding drapery aloft on the left is similar in pose to that on the left in a contemporary Diana and Callisto²⁴ (private collection); this may have been inspired by the nymph reaching for fruit on the right in the Rubens Nymphs and Satyrs. The nymph beside her is very similar to that in the centre of Jordaens’s Brussels Homage to Pomona.²⁵

It has been suggested that the Diana and Callisto, mentioned above, and the Pan Punished by Nymphs were painted as pendants,²⁶ a view rejected by Broos and De Poorter.

Broos speculates that Jordaens may have been provided with Vigenère’s translation of Philostratus by his patron, perhaps a learned, Amsterdam patrician.²⁷ But as McGrath suggests, Rubens could just as well have prompted Jordaens in the direction of Vigenère’s translation; he could read French²⁸ and was obviously well versed in classical mythology.²⁹

Gregory Martin, 2022