Jan Brueghel the Younger(Antwerp 1601 – 1678 Antwerp)

How to cite
Bakker, Piet. “Jan Brueghel the Younger” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited by Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–23. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/ (archivedDecember 2023).
A PDF of every version of this biography is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed bya permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

Jan Brueghel the Younger belonged to the third generation of a famous dynasty of painters. He was baptized in the St
George Church in Antwerp on 13 September 1601. His parents were Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568–1625), also known as“Velvet Brueghel,” and Isabella de Jode, daughter of the engraver Gerard de Jode.[1] His father was a famous andexceptionally successful painter who purchased a splendid house on the Lange Nieuwestraat in 1604. By that time, though,Jan had lost his mother, who had died the previous year. Soon thereafter his father took a second wife, Katharina vanMarienberghe (d. 1627). Among the couple’s children was Ambrosius Brueghel (1617–75), who would also become apainter, and Anna Brueghel (1620–56), the future wife of the famous artist David Teniers the Younger (1610–90). JanBrueghel the Younger would father Jan Pieter (1628–78) and Abraham Brueghel (1631–97), who constituted the fourth
generation of this remarkable family of painters.
Given his background it is hardly surprising that Brueghel became a painter. He received his first lessons from his father at
the age of ten. That his training went well is proven by a letter his father wrote to Cardinal Federico Borromeo(1564–1631) in 1616 stating his intention of sending his son to Italy.[2] This trip, however, was repeatedly postponed.
Brueghel did not leave until 7 May 1622 and arrived in Milan at the end of June to serve under Borromeo. He wassupposed to travel from Milan to Rome, but in Genoa he met two brothers from Antwerp, Lucas (1591-1661) and theartist Cornelis de Wael (1592–1667), who proposed that he work for them, an offer Brueghel accepted entirely against thewishes of his father. In Genoa he also met Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641), who convinced him to travel to Sicily.
Palermo was a disappointment, so he set sail for Malta. In April 1624 he was already back in Sicily, where he met up again
with Van Dyck. Upon learning of his father’s death the following year, he returned to Antwerp via Paris. After his arrivalin August 1625 he joined the Guild of Saint Luke and took over his father’s workshop. He also became a member of De
Violieren, a chamber of rhetoric.
A year later, on 5 July 1626, Brueghel married Anna Maria Janssens (1605–68) in the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp.
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Her father was the famous history painter Abraham Janssens (1575–1632). Brueghel met with success and was generally
considered an important artist. In 1632 “at least 1000 people”[3] came to his workshop to admire The Five Senses, and evenPeter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) did not consider it beneath him to paint the allegorical and religious figures in Brueghel’s
floral painting, a task his father-in-law, Abraham Janssens, also regularly performed.[4] Demand for his work reached apeak in the years after his marriage. His workshop grew steadily with many pupils and assistants, who made numerous
copies of paintings by Brueghel’sfather, grandfather, and even Brueghel himself, some of which were sold abroad. As of1628 regular shipments of these copies—and other work bought by Brueghel —found their way to Seville in Spain, where
his cousin Chrysostoom van Immerseel headed a sizeable trading firm.[5]Brueghel’s success was likely one of the reasons why he was appointed dean of the painters’ guild in 1630 and 1631.
However, the tide turned from 1632 to 1634, and he encountered financial difficulties. Payment for the paintings shippedto Seville was handled by Bernard Vermeurs, Van Immerseel’s agent in Antwerp. From letters by Brueghel to VanImmerseel it appears that this Vermeurs, for whom Brueghel worked exclusively for eighteen months, failed to honor theiragreement. Vermeurs, in turn, complained about Brueghel to Van Immerseel and “wished to be rid of the man.”[6] This
dispute became so heated that Vermeurs stormed into Brueghel’s home, took some of his stock and then sold it at auction.
Brueghel’s subsequent appeal to Van Immerseel seems to have convinced him to pay up, whereby Brueghel could meet hisfinancial obligations.
Even though this particular incident was resolved, it nevertheless marked the beginning of the end of Brueghel’s workshop.
After 1630 demand for his father’s work diminished, in part because the asking prices were deemed to be too high.[7] Inthat year he still managed to sell for 600 guilders “four works, being the history of the Book of Genesis, or the life ofAdam” to a nobleman of the French court.[8] Notwithstanding this profit, he came to depend more and more on theproduction of inexpensive copies of his father’s work and thus had to contend with less affluent clientele. He tried tocounter these setbacks by developing a more personal style, however his talent did not warrant his high asking prices. Theemphasis in his workshop increasingly shifted to the art trade and tapestry designs.[9] Through the offices of his brother-inlaw David Teniers the Younger (1610–90), court painter to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm (1614–62) as of 1647, he wasgranted a commission from the Brussels court in 1651. Brueghel subsequently moved to Paris, but was back in Antwerp in
1657. From then on he shuttled between the two cities, but his Antwerp workshop was never more than a shadow of what
it had been in its heyday.

- Piet Bakker, 2017

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Jan Brueghel the YoungerPage 3 of 3Endnotes
1. For more on this artist, see the biography of Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564/65 –1637/38) in thiscatalogue.
2. Cardinal Federico Borromeo was a great art lover and patron of Jan Brueghel the Elder.
3. “Nochthans duysent menschen.” The quote is from a letter by Jan Brueghel to his cousin Chrisostoom
van Immerseel in Seville. Jean Denucé, Brieven en documenten betreffend Jan Breughel I en II (Antwerp,1934), 83.
4. Other painters with whom he collaborated, as can be deduced from the journal he kept from 1625 to1651, include Joos de Momper (1564–1635), Lucas de Wael (1591–1661), Hendrick van Balen (ca.
1573–1632), Theodoor van Thulden (1606–69), Peter Gijsels (1621–90), Jan van Kessel the Elder(1626–79), Gonzales Coques (1614/18–84), Sebastiaen Franckx (1573–1647), David Teniers theYounger, Elias Voet, Abraham van Diepenbeeck (1596–1675), and Frans Wouters (1612–59). JeanDenucé, Brieven en documenten betreffend Jan Breughel I en II (Antwerp, 1934), 8, 139–60.
5. Jean Denucé, Brieven en documenten betreffend Jan Breughel I en II (Antwerp, 1934), 7–8.
6. “Wenste van den man ontslagen waer.” Jean Denucé, Brieven en documenten betreffend Jan Breughel I
en II (Antwerp, 1934), 86.
7. For the dwindling demand for Brueghel copies in the 1630s, see the biography of Pieter Brueghel theYounger in this catalogue.
8. “4 stuxkens, synde de Historie van het Boek Genesis, oft Adamsleven.” Jean Denucé, Brieven endocumenten betreffend Jan Breughel I en II (Antwerp, 1934), 154.
9. Ebeltije Hartkamp-Jonxis and Hillie Smit, European Tapestries in the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam, 2004),
139–41.

LiteratureDenucé, Jean. Brieven en documenten betreffend Jan Breughel I en II. Antwerp, 1934.
Hartkamp-Jonxis, Ebeltije, and Hillie Smit. European Tapestries in the Rijksmuseum. Amsterdam, 2004.
Van Mulders, Christine. Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard. Part 27, Rubens: Works in Collaboration,
Jan Brueghel I & II. London, 2016.
Orrock, Amy. Bruegel: Defining a Dynasty. Exh. cat. Bath, The Holburne Museum of Art. London,2017.

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