The Daughters of Cecrops Finding the Child Erichthonius

The painting was executed by Jacob Jordaens in 1617, when he was twenty-four years old, and remains influenced by the style of Peter Paul Rubens, who had depicted the same subject the previous year.

It has been in the collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp since at least the early twentieth century, where it is currently held by the Vlaamse Kunstcollectie.

The painting is held in the collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (part of the Vlaamse Kunstcollectie) in Antwerp, Belgium. While the provided sources confirm the museum's ownership, they do not list a specific inventory or accession number for the work.

Regarding its exhibition history, the artwork was featured in the retrospective titled "Jordaens, la gloire d'Anvers." This exhibition took place at the Petit Palais in Paris, running from September 2013 to January 2014.

Painted in 1617 when Jacob Jordaens was only twenty-four, this work reflects the artist's early career phase while heavily influenced by Peter Paul Rubens. Jordaens adopted the same mythological subject that Rubens had treated in 1616, drawing the narrative from Ovid's Metamorphoses and the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus. The composition highlights a thematic contrast between youth and old age, a motif also present in Rubens' version of the scene.

Jordaens returned to this specific subject decades later, creating a second interpretation in 1640 now held in Vienna. The painting was featured in the major retrospective 'Jordaens, la gloire d'Anvers' held at the Petit Palais in Paris from September 2013 to January 2014.

Jacob Jordaens revisited the mythological theme of Erichthonius's discovery in 1640, producing a second version now housed in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum, which revisited the narrative with a different visual emphasis compared to his 1617 masterpiece. The 1617 painting, created when Jordaens was twenty-four and still markedly influenced by Peter Paul Rubens, established his interpretation of the myth drawn from Ovid's Metamorphoses and Pseudo-Apollodorus's Bibliotheca, depicting the Athenian king's daughters uncovering the serpent-child Erichthonius. The work's composition and narrative details, including the portrayal of the daughters, Herse, Pandrosus, and Aglaurus, and symbolic elements such as Cupid's presence and the nurse's reaction, have been analyzed in scholarly retrospectives, including the 2013–2014 exhibition at the Petit Palais in Paris that highlighted Jordaens's engagement with Antwerp's artistic legacy.

This legacy is further underscored by the painting's inclusion in major institutional collections, such as the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, where it remains part of the Vlaamse Kunstcollectie.

Jacob Jordaens’ 1617 oil painting, titled The Daughters of Cecrops Finding the Child Erichthonius, depicts a mythological scene from ancient Greek legend. Executed when the artist was twenty‑four, the work is part of the collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp.