The Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Kassel is home to a collection of paintings by Jordaens that is unrivalled in Germany and represents a particularly suitable basis for further research into this Old Master. The painting "The King Drinks", which consists of seventeen individual pieces of canvas, is a prime example in restoration and art history terms. Analyses from the art history and artistic technique perspectives carried out in close collaboration have provided an insight into the extremely complex origins of this work of art which, in the case of Jordaens, represents an almost dynamic system of transformation, addition, reduction and editing, and the closely related question of how his studio was organised and how he worked to order.

The basis for the establishment of the respectively required international network of art restorers and art historians in order to debate this extensive range of questions, and of international museums who hold all of the comparable reference objects, has already been established in Kassel through the Brussels-Kassel co-exhibition project "Jordaens and Antiquity" as well as the accompanying conferences entitled "Reframing Jordaens" from 6 to 7 December 2012 in Brussels and from 6 to 7 May 2013 in Kassel.

Conference volume "Reframing Jordaens"

Until recently and rather surprisingly, the Flemish painter Jacob Jordaens was still overshadowed by Peter Paul Rubens with regard to a scientific approach to the works, a circumstance due as much to the 19th century concept of genius as to the contemporary discourses about the Malerfürsten, the "painter princes". Jordaens, however, headed an important major studio and considerably influenced the Antwerp art market for 40 years after Rubens' death. This comprehensive volume of essays is the first to combine the research findings of renowned art history experts with regard to Jacob Jordaens with the results of research conducted by art restorers. This interdisciplinary approach has provided a more detailed insight into the artist's studio practices and creative processes that paints a completely new picture of Jordaens and his exceptional inventiveness, visual imagery and intellectual independence.

The conference volume is available from the Schloss Wilhelmshöhe palace museum shop for €49.95.