This mythological scene is drawn from the Metamorphoses of Roman poet Publio Ovidio Nason, one of the texts on ancient mythology that had the greatest intellectual impact on 17th-century Flemish artists. According to Ovid, Diana had sent an enormous wild boar to ravage the region of Calydon as punishment after the king failed to make the promised sacrifices to her. The king’s son, Meleager, was an experienced hunter and he gathered his most skilled colleagues to kill the beast. One of them was Atalanta, a brave huntress who was the first to wound it, making it easier for Meleager to kill it. As thanks, he gave her the bore’s head, which provoked grumbling and envy among the other hunters. Meleager’s uncles were offended and, considering themselves more deserving of the trophy, they took it away from Atalanta. This infuriated Meleager who fought and killed his uncles, thus angering his mother. Her intervention led to his sudden death, fulfilling an ancient prophecy.

Jordaens chose to depict the fable’s culminating moment. On the right, Meleager’s uncles snatch the trophy from Atalanta. Angered, the hero brandishes his sword to kill them. In a tender gesture of fear, Atalanta attempts to halt Meleager’s vengeful fury. The scene is completed by the group of hunters on the left. The position of their weapons and arms, and the movement of their dogs, mark the composition’s rhythm and lead the viewer’s gaze to the main event.

The two parts of the composition were painted in separate stages. First, around 1620, Jordaens painted the group on the right, whose characteristics coincide with his early period, when his paintings were dominated by powerful and monumental figures influenced by Rubens. His deep and skillful use of light is appreciable here, as he combines strongly contrasted chiaroscuros to imbue the scene with a merited sense of tragedy. The figures on the left were painted on a separate piece of canvas and correspond to the artist’s late style, probably around 1640-1650. This is visible in the softer and sweeter use of light. The overall effect, with figures close to the foreground in a horizontal format, recalls the sculptural representations on friezes from classical Antiquity.

Jordaens explored the same subject on other occasions. In the Museo del Prado’s version, the story is softened in a poetic manner. The fateful outcome is barely suggested by the protagonists’ gestures, which are sweeter and more evocative than in other versions. The Prado’s canvas is well adapted to the Baroque understanding of this subject, which interprets the story of Meleager and Atalanta symbolically, as the gods’ punishment for the double murder caused by the hero’s infatuation.

The painting is first documented in Elizabeth of Farnesio’s collection in 1746, where it is listed as a depiction of the story of Venus and Adonis by Rubens and assigned to the monarchs’ bedroom at the palace in La Granja. From there, it passed to Aranjuez Palace, where it was documented in 1794. It remained there until it entered the Museo del Prado in the early 19th century (Text drawn from Pérez Preciado, J. J.: El Prado en el Ermitage, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2011, pp. 116-117).