Hendrick van Balen the Elder

Hendrick van Balen specialised in small cabinet pictures often painted on a copper support.

The artist played an important role in the renewal of Flemish painting in the early 17th century and was one of the teachers of Anthony van Dyck.

[5] Hendrick van Balen specialised in small cabinet pictures often painted on a copper support.

[6] While he had a clear preference for the smaller scale in his later career, van Balen's early works consisted of a number of large altarpieces.

[4] Anthony van Dyck made a few portraits of his master: a black chalk drawing (1627 – 1632, J. Paul Getty Museum), which is a study for van Dyck's The Iconography, a series of prints of famous people, and two grisaille oil sketches (c. 1630, Boughton House, Northamptonshire, UK; and 1634–1635, private collection).

Borromeo requested the painting to respond to the destruction of images of the Virgin in the preceding century and it thus combined both his interests in Catholic reform and the arts.

[10] The genre of garland paintings was 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.

[13] The medallion in the centre is traditionally believed to depict Cybele, the ancient Phrygian goddess of the earth and nature as it was described as such in 1774 when it was catalogued in the collection of William V, Prince of Orange in The Hague.

[13] Around the medallion is suspended a garland of flowers, vegetables and fruit – a tribute to the goddess and an ode to plenty and fertility.

[15] Another collaborative effort on a garland painting, this time with still life painter Jacob Foppens van Es, is A garland of flowers and fruit with a central cartouche depicting the Holy Family (Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans) (c. 1620–1630).