Garland of Flowers with Adoration of the Shepherdsc. 1625/1630

A scene with seven men and women gathered around an infant is enclosed in an eight-sided, octagonal painted frame, which is surrounded by a wreath of flowers in this vertical painting. The painted black frame-within-a-frame resembles molding. The people in the scene have pale skin and wear robes in shades of teal blue, burnt orange, red, muted purple, or red. A woman reaching for the bed on which the child lies and the child have gold halos. Others crouch or bend toward the child, and one pair, to our left, turn toward each other, presumably talking. The nighttime-blue sky is streaked with nickel-gray clouds beyond a partially ruined stone arch. A lamb with all four feet tired together lies at the foot of the child’s bed. The wreath surrounding the painting-within-a-painting is dense with tulips, roses, daffodils, poppies, violets, and other flowers and greenery painted in shades of lemon and butter yellow, opal and pearl white, brick and coral red, and sky and slate blue against an inky-black background. One artist signed the painting-within-a-painting near the bottom left corner, “FF F.” The second artist who painted this signed his initials, “HDB”, on the bottom edge of the painted frame.

Description from the National Gallery of Art.

Frans Francken the Younger painted this in about 1625/1630, aged about 44. It is now at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

How it was made

Oil on copper

A sheet of copper gives oil paint a hard, glass-smooth surface, ideal for small pictures with jewel-like detail.

Oil paint

Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.