The Virgin Mary with Infant and St. John in a Landscape, late 1620

Donated by Aikaterini Rodokanaki in 1907, “Madonna and Child and Saint John the Baptist in a Landscape” could be associated with a series of paintings dating from the late 1620s, painted after Jan Brueghel the Elder’s depictions of the Holy Family in an idyllic wooded landscape. In this painting, we can see the Virgin and Child, accompanied by Saint John the Baptist as a child; seven cupids carry baskets of flowers and fruit (week of 3 September). The scene is set in a heavenly landscape of flowers, trees, small animals (week of 7 September), and birds flying over a river on the left.

As was the case with his father, most of these religious works by Jan Brueghel the Younger were produced with the help of Hendrik van Balen I (Antwerp 1575 – Antwerp 1632), Brueghel’s permanent collaborator, who was tasked with painting the figures in such compositions.