(Antwerp 1601–1678)
A cartouche decorated with flowers and enclosing Saint Margaret of Cortona in prayer, signed lower right: J. Breughel,
oil on copper, 85 x 61.5 cm, framed

We are grateful to Klaus Ertz for confirming the attribution of the present painting (written communication).

Klaus Ertz writes: ‘The colours of the flowers give a brilliant and glowing impression and are typical of Flemish painting of the 1640s.’

In order to locate the present composition stylistically and chronologically, he compares it with the following works by Jan Brueghel II:
(1) The Holy Family in a Floral Cartouche (Dutch private collection, c. 1640/50);
(2) The Temptation of Saint Anthony in a Floral Cartouche (Anonymous Sale, Christie’s, London, 1977, c. 1650);
(3) Saint Jerome in a Cartouche of Flowers (Shickman Gallery, New York, 1968, c. 1650);
(4) Saint George in a Cartouche of Flowers (sale Muller, Amsterdam, 1914, c. 1650).

Ertz: ‘All of these examples date from the 1640s. The painting to be assessed here is related to them in terms of composition, painting style, palette, and perspective, so that it seems justified to assign it to the same period’. As to the figures appearing in the picture, he assumes the participation of a follower of Peter Paul Rubens. The present painting plays with the prototype of a saint’s image surrounded by a wreath of flowers. However, it breaks with traditional forms by making the spectator believe himself to be looking through a window opening adorned with flowers into the interior of a cave in which the saint is immersed in her prayer.