The collections
The Museum Plantin-Moretus conserves a multiple collections. Old printed books and manuscripts, printing presses and tools, paintings, prints and drawings, furniture and paintings and several archives.
Odysseus' ship stocked with provisions by Calypso
Jacob Jordaens was a gifted draughtsman and painter. Here he shows seven servants carrying supplies aboard Odysseus’ ship, under the gaze of the lovelorn nymph Calypso.
Odyssea
After the deaths of Rubens (1640) and Van Dyck (1641), Jordaens remained the most prominent artist in Antwerp. This drawing is a fine example of Jordaens as a draughtsman-painter.
After the fall of Troy, Odysseus eventually arrived on the distant island of Ogygia, where Calypso, the daughter of Atlas, lived. Odysseus was warmly received there. Hoping that he would become her husband, she kept him captive. After seven years, and by order of Zeus, who sent Hermes as his messenger, she was forced to let Odysseus go.
This drawing by Jordaens shows seven servants, under the watchful eye of the nymph Calypso, loading provisions onto Odysseus’ ship. They roll a barrel down a gangplank towards the boat or carry food to it on their heads in dishes or baskets.
This sheet was created in three stages. First, a rapid sketch in black chalk; then Jordaens fixed the outlines with a few loose strokes of the brush; and finally he modelled the entire scene with a brown wash and polychrome bodycolour.
