Jia Lu was born into a Beijing that stood relatively unchanged by the ravages of the Chinese Communist Revolution. Land reforms and a fundamental reorganization of government and civil life had transformed relations between individuals during the five years of Communist rule preceding the artist’s birth. But the Beijing landscape, with its narrow, winding alleys and compounds enclosed by gray walls, the palaces of the Qing emperors and aristocracy weighted under their yellow and kingfisher roof tiles, the lakes and parks where one could swim during the summer and skate in winter, the songs of vendors falling through the dawn air like the swallows appearing at first light—these were the permanent aspects of a Beijing that filled the artist’s memories and provided the earliest inspiration for a lifetime of work.

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Jacob Jordaens (May 19, 1593 - October 18, 1678), was a Flemish painter, born in Antwerp.
Like Rubens, he studied under Adam van Noort. A marriage to his master's daughter in 1616, the year after his admission to the guild of painters, prevented him from visiting Rome. He was forced to content himself with studying such examples of the Italian masters as he found at home; but a far more potent influence was exerted upon his style by Rubens, who employed him sometimes to reproduce small sketches in large format.