Daniel Seghers

Seghers was born in Antwerp. His father was a Catholic silk merchant. Around 1601, after the death of his father and the conversion of his mother to Calvinism, he moved with his mother to Utrecht. He may have started his initial education at the age of 15 in Utrecht, with an unknown master.

In 1611 the young artist returned to Antwerp where he was enrolled in the painters Guild of Saint Luke as a student of Jan Brueghel the Elder (the velvet Brueghel).

in 1614 he also joined the Jesuit order and joined the Novitiate in Mechelen. From 1621 to 1625 he stayed in Brussels, where he made his final vows. In 1625 he moved to Rome where he spent two years. From 1627 Seghers returned to the profession house in Antwerp.

He painted flower medallions, in which artworks you see centrally placed Madonnas or saints, which were always applied by colleagues. Its floral wreaths are fairly symmetrical and the background is usually gray and dark.

Seghers almost always painted on copper and in large format. The Jesuit order donated a painting by him in exchange for a financial donation. The money was used to finance the education courses and schools founded by the Jesuits.

Seghers had the opportunity to work on projects with the most important paintersof his time: he collaborated with Nicolas Poussin on some religious paintings. And Seghers painted for Cardinal Ludovisi a garland of flowers around an oval cartouche which was filled with putti by the Italian painter Domenichino.