Jan van Balen

Jan van Balen (21 July 1611 in Antwerp – 14 March 1654) was a Flemish painter known for his Baroque paintings of history and allegorical subjects.

[2] His father was a prominent painter in Antwerp and played an important role in the renewal of Flemish painting in the early 17th century.

[1] At the occasion of the Joyous Entry (Pompa Introitus) by the new governor of the Spanish Netherlands Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand into Antwerp in 1635, Jan van Balen collaborated with his brother Gaspard, Theodoor van Thulden, Jan de Labare and Erasmus Quellinus the Younger on the execution of designs for the gallery on the Meir and the triumphal arch at St. John's Church in Antwerp.

Examples are The sleeping goddess Diana and her nymphs after the hunt, observed by satyrs based on an earlier composition of Jan Brueghel the Elder and Hendrick van Balen and The Feast of Bacchus (Auctioned at Dorotheum on 21 October 2014, Vienna, lot 27) based on an earlier composition of Jan Brueghel the Younger and Hendrick van Balen.

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.

[9] 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 Spanish Netherlands) and in Antwerp generally.

The medallion in the centre depicts the Holy Family while the garland consists of flowers and fruits with a symbolic connection to the devotion to Mary.