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The King Drinks, oil painting by Jacob Jordaens, 1638; in the Royal … (credit: Courtesy of the Musée Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels; photograph, Photo SASKIA, North Amherst, Mass.)

(baptized May 20, 1593, Antwerp, Spanish Netherlands — died Oct. 18, 1678, Antwerp) Flemish painter active in Antwerp. He was admitted to the painters' guild in 1615 and by the 1620s had a flourishing studio with many students. After the death of Peter Paul Rubens, to whose Baroque style he was indebted, he became the leading painter in Flanders. His paintings, crowded with robust figures, are noted for strong contrasts of light and shade and an air of sensual vitality bordering on coarseness. He also produced religious paintings and portraits. His most important commissions were two enormous murals for the royal residence called the Huis ten Bosch, near The Hague. His later works are of uneven quality, showing the increasingly important role of his assistants.

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