The King Drinks

This lively picture presents a typical Flemish household celebrating the feast of Epiphany (6 January) with a traditional feast. A 'king' would be chosen at random - either by drawing lots or by finding a bean hidden in the cake - and crowned with a paper coronet. The king would then be given the privilege of appointing the other officials of his court: the queen, counsellor, cupbearer, carver, musician, jester, physician and others, depending on the size of the company. Because such a scene envolves merry figures playing at courtly life, the subject gave Jordaens the opportunity to explore several of his favourite modes of painting all at once: the history painting, the genre scene and the character study.

The King Drinks was one of Jordaens's most popular subjects, he returned to it several times in his lifetime. The present picture is based on an original now in the Staatliche Museen at Kassel. Painted in circa 1640, the Kassel canvas was extended on its left side around 1650-60. As the present picture does not reflect the extension, it seems that it was probably painted from Jordaens's original composition before the extension was made.

By the turn of the twentieth century, this picture belonged to the great Belgian entrepreneur Édouard Louis Joseph, Baron Empain (1852-1929), whose companies developed several French railway lines, including the Paris Métro.