GIOVANNI STANCHI (Rome, 1608 - c. 1675) Flower garland with portrait of a young woman Oil on canvas, 65.5X50 cm Provenance: Munich, Hampel, 19 June 2012, lot 2017 (as Giovanni Stanchi) Private collection Giovanni Stanchi's style reached an international level and not a few of his works have been attributed to artists of the Flemish school. We recall here the Flower Garland in the Anhaltische Gemäldegalerie in Dessau, attributed by Bettina Warche to the Antwerp painter Frans Ykens (see Fiori, Cinque Secoli di Pittura Floreale, exhibition catalogue edited by F. Solinas, Rome 2004, pp. 245-255 and 258). Although the use of the garland was certainly employed by Nordic artists, the invention of circumscribing figures or sacred scenes in flowery garlands occurred in Italy. In fact, it was due to the collaboration between Pietro Paolo Rubens and the Oratorian patrons of the Chiesa Nuova in Rome in 1608, and in the same year it was Charles Borromeo who commissioned a copper plate with a flower garland from Jan Brugel and Hendrick van Balen. It should then come as no surprise that the iconography found wide diffusion in the Eternal City, particularly in the Baroque age, aimed at magnifying the great decoration, or rather, that luxury realism that while adhering to the truth satisfied the needs of decoration.