At the museum Maagdenhuis: go to the (former) chapel, if accessible.

Carel Van Mander again, in 1604, about Adam van Noort “… who is also a skillful figure painter”.

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The Maagdenhuis has been Antwerp’s orphanage for girls for more than 300 years (1552 to 1882). It is now a museum that holds a compact collection of valuable paintings, largely on subjects about its role in the city’s social history. Here we meet Rubens’ s second teacher, Adam van Noort. A painting by him hangs in the former chapel, still in its original place; it’s called ‘Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary‘.

To understand the theme: according to an ancient legend, Mary was brought to the temple in Jerusalem at a very young age by her (already elderly) parents Joachim and Anna to be raised dedicated to God. This story is not in the Bible but in apocryphal writings; the Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox continue to celebrate it on Nov. 21. This feast is meant to inspire girls to be educated not only in knowledge and skills, but equally in religious virtue (which is why you find more than one old girls’ school with that designation).

Adam van Noort (1562-1641) learned the craft from his father Lambert (Amersfoort, 1521 – +Antwerp 1571). Adam ran a studio at Hofstraat 22 in Antwerp. He counted Rubens and Van Balen among his pupils, but most of all, he was Jordaens’s main teacher. This Jacques Jordaens married his daughter Catharina on May 15, 1616. Jacques repeatedly portrayed his – extended – family as we have seen; through comparison with other portraits, also the central figure in the painting ‘The King Drinks (or Twelfth Night King)‘ can be identified as his father-in-law.

Back to this work. Layers of varnish have darkened the original fresh colours. A restoration would possibly bring them out of the shadows again. The composition with figures in the foreground is typical of the late 16th century. The central theme is in the middle and in the grey background, we catch a glimpse of Joachim and Anna at the Golden Gate in Jerusalem. A painting like this still tells several chapters from the same story; later, in the Baroque period, that will shift to a single cover story.

The characters display expressive hand gestures towards each other, but hardly towards us as spectators. We don’t feel emotionally involved, even though we are sympathetic towards the logic that this edifying, educational work is in its place here, in an orphanage.

Go to the Vander Meere room