Madonna and Child with Angels in a Garland of Flowers

This panel was painted by two friends at once in Antwerp, around 1617. Rubens laid in the Virgin, the Christ Child, and the ring of small angels at the centre, while Jan Brueghel the Elder, the acknowledged master of painted flowers, wound the thick garland around them. Pictures like this, a holy image framed by a dense wreath of blooms, were close to a new invention in Catholic Antwerp at the time. After decades in which Protestant reformers had attacked and destroyed religious images, the garland was partly an argument back, surrounding the sacred figures with the abundance of God's creation. Look closely and some of the flowers spill over the angels, painted right on top of Rubens's figures so the wreath seems to stand in front of them. The two men collaborated often, dividing panels by what each did best. This one is in the Louvre.