Madonna in a Garland of Flowers

In 1617 Pope Paul V, after years of pressure from Spain, forbade anyone to teach in public that the Virgin Mary had been conceived in original sin. The Immaculate Conception became dogma only in 1854. In the Catholic Netherlands of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella, she a Spanish princess, the cause already had strong backing, and this panel was painted in just those years, around 1616 to 1618. The white lilies in the wreath stand for purity, and so for Mary's immaculate conception. Look again and the Madonna turns out to be a picture within the picture, a painting in a black frame hung from a red ribbon and ringed with flowers, the way real images of the Virgin and the saints were garlanded as a sign of devotion. Two painters made it, one after the other. Rubens first painted the Madonna and the little angels around her, and then his friend Jan Brueghel the Elder, a specialist in flowers, painted in the blooms.