Frans Ykens

[2] He must have fallen on hard times in his later years as he had to mortgage his property and his possessions were sold off after he died to pay his debts.

He was influenced by the work of other still-life painters, including the "breakfast" pieces (ontbijtjes) of Willem Claesz Heda and the pronkstillevens or large sumptuous still lifes of Frans Snyders.

Garland paintings are a special type of still life developed in Antwerp by Jan Brueghel the Elder in collaboration with the Italian cardinal Federico Borromeo at the beginning of the 17th century.

[8] It was further inspired by the cult of veneration and devotion to Mary prevalent at the Habsburg court (then the rulers over the Southern Netherlands) and in Antwerp generally.

[9] By the second half of the 17th century secular themes such as portraits and mythological subjects also decorated the central part of the many paintings made in this fashion.

An example of such later development in garland paintings is the Birth of the red rose (Staatliches Museum Schwerin), a collaboration between Ykens and Cornelis Schut.

Other figure painters with whom Ykens is known to have collaborated on garland paintings include Jacob Jordaens, Erasmus Quellinus the Younger, Jan van den Hoecke, Pieter de Grebber, Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert and Pieter van Avont.