The Holy Family with the infant St. John the Baptist
(1601 to 1678 Netherlands)
Colnaghi
Description:
Oil on canvas
64 ⅛ x 54 in. (163 x 137 cm.)
Provenance: Hans Czjek von Smidaich, by whom acquired, probably in Vienna, circa 1880-90, and thence by family descent; European Private Collection; Schloss Fuschl Collection, Hof near Salzburg, Austria.
A garland of flowers and foliage surrounds an oval medallion depicting the Holy Family, seated in a verdant landscape, attended by angels. Beside the Virgin Mary, stands the infant St. John the Baptist, his eyes uplifted, adoring the Christ child. Five small medallions adorn the wreath, illustrating episodes from the life of the Virgin, which taken from top left, feature The Annunciation, The Visitation, The Adoration of the Shepherds, The Presentation in the Temple and Christ among the Doctors. The garland is composed of an astonishing array of floral species, their rich colours brilliantly set off against the dark background. Some are wild flowers from the meadows and hedgerows of northern Europe, others are showy cultivars from well-tended gardens, or rare exotics, imported from foreign climes. Close inspection reveals a host of insect life, creeping, crawling and fluttering amid the greenery.
Paintings of religious images, surrounded by garlands of flowers, became extremely popular in seventeenth century Antwerp and were usually the product of collaboration between two artists, with complementary skills. Here, the figures are painted by Hendrick van Balen the Elder and the flowers are by Jan Brueghel the Younger. The earliest example of this type was produced by the latter’s father, Jan Brueghel the Elder, and Hendrick van Balen, in the first decade of the century. The small painting, now in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, in Milan , was commissioned by Brueghel’s principal patron, Cardinal Federico Borromeo, and depicts a Madonna, painted on a silver panel, set into a larger sheet of copper, on which Brueghel painted a wreath of flowers. Judging by the correspondence between the artist and his benefactor, the idea behind it seems to have come from the Cardinal himself. On 1 February 1608, Brueghel wrote, “I am busy with the little painting of the garland of flowers; and in it, according to the instructions of your Eminence, I am going to fit a Madonna with a landscape. I hope and trust that if any work of mine has given pleasure to your Eminence, this one will exceed all the others” . The result was obviously a success and Brueghel and van Balen went on to paint another similar work for this patron. Brueghel also developed a partnership with Rubens, with whom he painted garlands with fruits, vegetables and flowers. In a letter of 5 September 1621, Brueghel offered Borromeo another painting, which he described as “the most beautiful and rare thing I have ever done in my life. Rubens too has well demonstrated his talent in the painting in the middle of a beautiful Madonna. The birds and animals are done after the life from some in the possession of the Archduchess. I believe that the charm and precision of this piece will please your Eminence..” . Needless to say, the Cardinal was delighted with the picture and acquired it for his collection. Although it is usual to identify this work with a painting now in the Louvre, in Paris , the reference could also apply to another Madonna in a flower garland by Brueghel and Rubens in the Prado, Madrid . The composition of the Louvre painting is dateable to 1617, or before, since in that year Jan Brueghel dated his painting of the Sense of Sight , featuring what must have been the prime version of the composition, displayed amongst other works in the collection of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella.
The floral wreath in the present work is derived directly from the Elder Brueghel’s garland in the Louvre. Here, Jan the Younger adheres closely to his father’s prototype in the configuration of the principal blooms, whilst omitting the birds and animals and varying numerous other small details. In the central medallion, van Balen depicts an entirely different scene from the Rubens Madonna and the small oval roundels are also an original addition. There are also some similarities in the flowers of our wreath, particularly the lilies, and those in the Prado picture, mentioned above. The high quality of the present work and the detailed treatment of the flowers point to a date early in the Younger Brueghel’s career, when he was working with his father, before his departure for Italy in 1622. In 1625, Jan the Younger returned from Italy, following his father’s sudden death and took over the running of the family studio, selling paintings left by Jan the Elder and completing unfinished works. In order to fulfil the demand for pictures in the Elder Brueghel’s manner, he took on assistants, devoting the rest of his career to producing copies and versions of his father’s most famous works. He continued to paint flower garlands with Hendrick van Balen, until the latter’s death in 1632, and also with Frans Francken the Younger, Pieter van Avont and other figure painters of the day. In these later flower paintings, Jan Brueghel II developed a more individual style, which is less detailed, using looser, bolder brushwork. The popularity of these works is shown by the fact that two very similar collaborative pictures of the Holy Family surrounded by flower garlands by Van Balen and Brueghel the Younger, much smaller in scale, but where the composition of the central medallion is almost identical, were published by Bettina Werche who dates them c. 1620 .These paintings, however, lack the unusual motif of the surrounding medallions incorporated amongst the flowers.
A number of other Flemish artists perpetuated the garland tradition, which flourished well into the second half of the century, most notably Jan Davidsz. de Heem, Daniel Seghers, a pupil of Jan Brueghel the Elder, and their many epigones. However, to regard such garland paintings as purely decorative would be to overlook their deeper significance to the seventeenth-century viewer. On one level, the flowers themselves enjoyed a rarity value in the early seventeenth century and it was during this period that several artists, including Jan Brueghel the Elder produced the first independent flower paintings. Once again the correspondence between Jan Brueghel the Elder and Federico Borromeo is illuminating. In one letter Brueghel relates that, “I have begun and destined for your excellency a bunch of various flowers that will be found very beautiful, as much for naturalness as for the beauty and rarity of various flowers, some are unknown and little seen in this area; for this, I have been to Brussels in order to depict some few flowers from nature that are not found in Antwerp” . It must be remembered that flowers such as the tulip, hyacinth, ranunculus, anemone and fritillary had only recently been introduced into Western Europe. What also comes across is the sense of the wonder at the artist’s virtuosity in rendering flowers with such fidelity to nature. Not surprisingly, flower pieces were highly sought after and commanded high prices. In a letter of 25 August 1606 Brueghel noted that “Under the flowers I have placed a jewel, with minted coins [and] with rarities from the sea. Your excellency must judge for yourself if the flowers do not surpass the gold and jewels” , implying that not only were painted flowers considered precious works of art, but the individual flowers depicted were often rare and costly specimens.
On another level, painted flower garlands served a religious function, reflecting the Counter-Reformation policy of the Catholic Church, following the Iconoclastic riots of the sixteenth century . It becomes clear that the purpose of such works of art was to reaffirm the validity of religious images as objects of veneration, an issue of great importance at that time. The garland format had precedents in the Medieval Rosary Madonnas and there were also analogies with the contemporary practice of draping real floral garlands over painted or sculpted images on feast and holy days. Thus we see that the central image is often painted to give the impression of being a separate painting. In this case, the illusion is enhanced by the extremely naturalistic treatment of the wreath, with small sprays of flowers overlapping the edge of the oval medallion. Artists like Daniel Seghers developed this notion further, depicting illusionistic stone cartouches, adorned with flowers, encircling a feigned sculptural image. The surrounding wreaths invariably include plants and flowers with rich symbolic content, linking them to the central theme, for instance, thistles or holly surrounding scenes of Christ’s Passion, such as Christ Crowned with Thorns, Ecce Homo, the Pietà, or the Virgin with Instruments of the Passion. In our picture, conspicuous bunches of lilies, symbols of the Virgin’s purity, are mixed with roses and iris, both flowers associated with the Virgin Mary. In this way, the preciousness and beauty of the painted garland was intended to concentrate the viewer’s attention on the devotional image, stirring the emotions of the faithful and enhancing the spiritual experience.
Jan Brueghel the Younger was born in Antwerp in 1601, the eldest son of Jan Brueghel the Elder. He began his training in his father’s studio at the age of ten and, following both his father’s and grandfather’s example, travelled to Italy, in 1622, where he stayed with his father’s patron, Cardinal Federico Borromeo, in Milan. In 1624 he travelled to Sicily with his childhood friend, Anthony van Dyck. Brueghel returned to Antwerp in 1625 after a cholera epidemic claimed the life of his father and three of his siblings. He joined the St. Luke’s Guild that year and became head of this father’s studio. The following year he married Maria, daughter of the artist, Abraham Janssens by whom he had eleven children. Jan the Younger was head of the Guild in 1630-31 and in the same year he was commissioned to paint an Adam Cycle for the French royal house. He was recorded in Paris in the 1650s and worked for the Austrian court in 1651. He returned to Antwerp in 1657 where he died in 1678 at the age of seventy-seven.
Hendrick van Balen was born in Antwerp around 1575 and, according to Karel van Mander, was a pupil of Adam van Noort. He became a master in the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke in 1592-3. He apparently made a trip to Italy between 1595 and 1600, where he is assumed to have come into contact with Hans Rottenhammer owing to the similarity in their style. In 1605, van Balen married Margareta Briers in Antwerp and the couple had eleven children: three sons, Jan, Gaspar and Hendrick II became painters and their daughter, Maria, married the painter Theodore van Thulden. Van Balen owned a large house on the Lange Nieuwestraat in Antwerp. He served as Dean of the Guild in 1609-10 and as Dean of the Society of Romanists in 1613 (membership of the latter was restricted to persons who had travelled to Rome). About this time, he accompanied Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder on a diplomatic mission to the Northern Netherlands where they met Hendrick Goltzius and other Haarlem artists. Van Balen ran a successful studio for thirty years and had many pupils, including Anthony van Dyck, Frans Snyders, Andries Snellinck and Jusus Sustermans. Van Balen died on 17 July 1632 and was buried in the St. Jacobskerk in Antwerp.
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19th Century European Art
