Icon of the Madonna and Child Suspended Within a Fruit and Flower Garland
Object type | Painting |
Genre | Garland |
Date | ca. 1621 |
Dimensions | 79 x 65 cm |
Support | Panel |
Medium | Oil |
Collaborators | Peter Paul Rubens |
Our attribution | Jan Brueghel the Elder |
Other authorities | Ertz 2008-10, #481 Ertz 1979, #368 |
Location | Madrid, Spain |
Collection | Museo del Prado |
Accession numbers | inv. #1418 |
Tags | Deer, Insects, Monkey, Parrot, Rubens, Putti, Christ, Virgin Mary, Flowers, Fruit, Garland, Vegetables |
External resources | Museo del Prado |
Leganes inventory, #4: "otra imagen de Ntra Señora con el Niño en los brazos y dos angeles con la corona, de mano de Rubens, y su cerco de rosas y frutas de mano de Brueghel de vara de aldo y 3 qtas. de ancho, en 11.000." cited López Navió, “Analecta Calascanctiana” 1962, p. 269.
1666 inventory of the royal collection: en la pienza próxima a la galeria del Cierzo, médiodia del Alcázar, otra pintura con la imagen de Nuestra Señora y una guirnalda de flores de mano de Rubens, en trescientos ducados."
So -- it mattered to Leganes that Brueghel was a collaborator here; less so to whoever was doing the royal inventory.
My old notes on the painting say that the execution of Rubens's part is odd, a kind of cakey, painty overlay in somewhat yellow-white tones, not that bluey-pink smoothness that Rubens does in larger figures. It has more of the brushy vibrancy of Jan's parts of the painting, in fact.