General Seghers was exclusively a flower painter, mainly of cartouches and flower garlands as well as pure flower paintings. He was very prolific and 239 works are currently attributed to the artist. It is not easy to establish a chronology for Seghers's paintings since he only dated his works in the period 1635–1651. Possibly there was a stylistic development in his flower garlands from the initial almost uniform garlands towards garlands composed of three or four groups of flowers. Stylistically, there is clearly in his early work a recognisable influence of Jan Brueghel the Elder. Like his master Brueghel, Seghers used flowers and plants that grew in his home country and in particular cultivated garden flowers and he did not respect the blooming seasons of the flowers he painted together. Other artists involved in the early development of the genre included
Hendrick van Balen,
Andries Daniels,
Peter Paul Rubens and Seghers himself. The genre was initially connected to the visual imagery of the
Counter-Reformation movement. Garland paintings typically show a flower garland around a devotional image, portrait or other religious symbol (such as the
host). Garland paintings were usually collaborations between a still life and a figure painter. While many of Seghers's collaborators on his garland paintings were anonymous local artists, he often collaborated with leading Antwerp figure painters. There is often uncertainty or disagreement about the identity of collaborators on specific artworks even though Seghers himself compiled a list of the flower still lifes, which he had painted and the patrons for whom he had painted them. In the catalogue he gave a description of each of his paintings, his collaborator and the number of paintings he produced. As the catalogue is incomplete, the collaborators are not always known with certainty. It is known he often worked with
Cornelis Schut,
Erasmus Quellinus II,
Abraham van Diepenbeek,
Simon de Vos,
Jan van den Hoecke,
Gonzales Coques and Rubens. It is possible that Seghers collaborated with Rubens on a garland painting for the
Saint Carolus Borromeus church in Antwerp. The garland paintings are often of a large size. The
Saint Ignatius in a cartouche with flowers and cherubs, which measures about 190 to 299 cm and includes not only a cartouche painted by Cornelis Schut but also angels attributed to
Jan van Balen. His work influenced artists such as
Jan Davidsz. de Heem in Antwerp and
Juan de Arellano in Madrid. His paintings were highly prized and collected at the court of
Frederik Hendrik in
The Hague. The Dutch poet
Joost van den Vondel also wrote highly of Seghers's paintings. Other collectors included
Christina of Sweden,
Charles I,
Philip IV of Spain,
Maria de' Medici,
Charles II, who visited the artist in 1649, and
Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, the Italian collector
Scipione Borghese and the Antwerp collector and patron of Anthony van Dyck,
Cornelis van der Geest. His paintings were usually not sold through traditional contacts such as art dealers, but were instead presented as gifts by the Jesuit order and used for the adornment of churches. They served as stimulants to religious contemplation and as powerful instruments of diplomacy. In 1631, for example, Seghers sent a painting of a
Crown of Flowers to
Marie de' Medici on the occasion of her visit, together with the
Infanta Isabella, to the College of St. Ignatius. His compositions clearly carried a symbolic and devotional element, which was in line with the doctrines of the Jesuits. ==Notes==