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Jan Brueghel the Elder
Flemish, 1568-1625
and Unknown Collaborator

Garland of Flowers with Holy Family,
ca. 1620
Oil on panel

Purchase with funds from Alfred Austell
Thornton in memory of Leila Austell Thornton
and Albert Edward Thornton, Sr., and Sarah
Miller Venable and William Hoyt Venable,
1989.113

A wreath of flowers surrounds a painting of Mary,
Joseph, and others adoring the infant Christ.
By including the elderly figure of St. Anne, the
Virgin’s mother, the artist suggests that life is a
cycle that proceeds in three distinct stages: child-
hood, adulthood, and old age.