Daniel Seghers (1590 - 1661)

Important Flemish painter Daniel Seghers focused mainly on floral still lifes and excelled in the genre of “flower garland” painting. His paintings were highly valued during his life and became a part of many important aristocratic collections, including William I of Orange, Queen Christina I of Sweden , Charles I Stuart, Philip IV of Spain, Marie de Medici and Cardinal Scipione Caffarelli-Borghese. The artist came from Antwerp, where he became a member of the Guild of St. Luke as a student of Jan Brueghel the Elder, whose influence in his early works is clearly recognizable. In 1625 he became a Jesuit priest and worked in Brussels and Rome (where he co-laborated with Nicolas Poussin and Domenichino). All of his paintings have a live, natural feel and emerge significantly from the dark background. His color palette is full and bright. Seghers favored displaying the flowers that he knew from his homeland, or cultivated garden plants. He painted various kinds of flowers together, regardless of the time of year when these plants bloom. He often showed roses, tulips and other flora just before they blossomed. He mastered the depiction of details and complemented figural paintings by other artists with floral motifs or whole garland wreaths. (expert opinion: Dr. Klaus Ertz, Lingen)