Pieter van Avont is mainly known for his religious and mythological scenes and cabinet paintings. A motif appearing in many of van Avont's works is a group of naked children and putti. In his many renderings of the Holy Family, they appear in a variety of roles such as the Infant Christ, John the Baptist and angels. They often pay tribute to the Virgin and Child. The arrangement of the figures in the grouping is identical in several of his paintings. Figures of naked children also appear in his bacchanals and in allegorical scenes such as the
Four Elements and
War and Peace. His style in these works is characterized by a soft modelling of the figures using
sfumato and
warm colours. The scenes with children are often set in a landscape. Although van Avont signed several of these compositions, he did not always paint the landscapes himself. The genre of garland paintings was inspired by the cult of veneration and devotion to
Mary prevalent at the
Habsburg court (then the rulers over the Southern Netherlands) and in Antwerp generally. The genre was initially connected to the visual imagery of the
Counter-Reformation movement. Garland paintings were usually collaborations between a still life and a figure painter. Jan Brueghel the Younger and Pieter van Avont painted together
The Virgin and Child in a Cartouche with Flowers. Pieter van Avont painted the figures. He painted landscapes himself. Evidence for this is that a pair of landscapes by van Avont was listed in an Antwerp estate in 1676. While the work
Flora in a Garden with Flowers and Trees (
Kunsthistorisches Museum) was referred to in the 19th century as co-signed by van Avont and
Jan Brueghel the Younger, it is now believed that van Avont also painted the landscape which had been attributed to Brueghel. Van Avont was also a printmaker and etched several plates with scenes of angels and putti. ==Selected works==