Virgin and Child in a Flower Garland

The tightest date on this picture is on its back. The board carries a maker's mark, MV, which the Prado reads as the brand of the Antwerp panel-maker Michiel Vriendt, a free master of the painters' guild from 1615 and dead by 1637. The museum published a study of such marks in its own bulletin between 2019 and 2021, using them to date Flemish boards that give no date on the front. This one is catalogued simply as 17th century. The wood narrows that to the 1630s.

The record names two painters. Daniel Seghers laid in the wreath, roses and tulips, a hyacinth, narcissus, anemones and pansies, with a cabbage white butterfly settled on it, and Cornelis Schut painted the Virgin and Child in the opening it frames. The panel reached the museum from the Spanish royal collection.

The Prado holds a second version of the same composition, on canvas, catalogued as a copy.