Jan Brueghel the Younger(Antwerp 1601 – 1678 Antwerp)

How To CiteBakker, Piet. "Jan Brueghel the Younger." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
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Jan Brueghel the Younger belonged to the third generation of a famous dynasty of painters. He wasbaptized in the St.-Joriskerk 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 deJode.[1] His father was a famous and exceptionally 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 previousyear. Soon thereafter his father took a second wife, Katharina van Marienberghe. Among the couple’schildren was Ambrosius Brueghel (1617–75), who would also become a painter, and Anna Brueghel, thefuture wife of the famous artist David Teniers the Younger (1610–90). Jan Brueghel the Younger would
father Jan Pieter and Abraham Brueghel, who constituted the fourth generation of this remarkable family ofpainters.
Given his background it is hardly surprising that Jan became a painter. He received his first lessons fromhis father at the age of ten. That his training went well is proven by a letter his father wrote to CardinalFederico Borromeo (1564–1631) in 1616 stating his intention of sending his son to Italy.[2] This trip,
however, was repeatedly postponed. Jan did not leave until 7 May 1622 and arrived in Milan at the end ofJune to serve under Borromeo. He was supposed to travel from Milan to Rome, but in Genoa he met two
brothers from Antwerp, Lucas and the artist Cornelis de Wael (1592–1667), who proposed that he work forthem, an offer Brueghel accepted entirely against the wishes of his father. In Genoa he also met Anthonyvan Dyck (1599–1641), who convinced him to travel to Sicily. Palermo was a disappointment, so he set sailfor Malta. In April 1624 he was already back in Sicily, where he met up again with Van Dyck. Upon learningof his father’s death the following year, he returned to Antwerp via Paris. After his arrival in August 1625 hejoined 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, he married Anna Maria Janssens in the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal inAntwerp. Her father was the famous history painter Abraham Janssens. Jan met with success and wasgenerally considered an important artist. In 1632 “at least 1000 people”[3] came to his workshop to admire
The Five Senses, and even Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) did not consider it beneath him to paint the© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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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 a peak in the years right after his marriage. Hisworkshop grew steadily with many pupils and assistants, who made numerous copies of paintings by Jan’sfather, grandfather, and even Jan himself, some of which were sold abroad. As of 1628 regular shipmentsof these copies—and other work bought by Jan—found their way to Seville in Spain, where his cousin
Chrysostoom van Immerseel headed a sizeable trading firm.[5]Jan’s success was likely one of the reasons why he was appointed dean of the painters’ guild in 1630 and1631. However, the tide turned from 1632 to 1634, and he encountered financial difficulties. Payment forthe paintings shipped to Seville was handled by Bernard Vermeurs, Van Immerseel’s agent in Antwerp.
From letters by Brueghel to Van Immerseel it appears that this Vermeurs, for whom Brueghel worked
exclusively for eighteen months, failed to honor their agreement. Vermeurs, in turn, complained about
Brueghel to Van Immerseel and “wished to be rid of the man.”[6] This dispute became so heated thatVermeurs 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 his financial 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] In that year he still managed to sell for 600 guilders “four works, being
the history of the Book of Genesis, or the life of Adam” to a nobleman of the French court.[8] Notwithstanding
this profit, he came to depend more and more on the production of inexpensive copies of his father’s workand thus had to contend with less affluent clientele. He tried to counter these setbacks by developing amore personal style, however his talent did not warrant his high asking prices. The emphasis in hisworkshop increasingly shifted to the art trade and tapestry designs.[9] Through the offices of his brother-inlaw David Teniers the Younger, court painter to Archduke Leopold as of 1647, he was granted acommission from the Brussels court in 1651. Jan subsequently moved to Paris, but was back in Antwerp in1657. From then on he shuttled between the two cities, but his Antwerp workshop was never more than ashadow of what it had been in its heyday.
-Piet Bakker

Endnotes
1. For more on this artist, see the biography of Pieter Brueghel the Younger in this catalogue.
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
Chrisostomo van Immerseel in Seville. Jean Denucé, Brieven en documenten betreffend JanBreughel I en II, (Bronnen voor de geschiedenis van de Vlaamsche kunst) (Antwerp, 1934), 83.
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Jan Brueghel the Younger
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4. Other painters with whom he collaborated, as can be deduced from the journal he kept from1625 to 1651, include Joos de Momper, Lucas de Wael, Hendrick van Balen, Theodoor vanThulden, Peter Gijsels, Jan van Kessel, Gonzales Coques, Sebastiaen Franckx, David Teniers
the Younger, Elias Voet, Abraham van Diepenbeeck, and Frans Wouters. Jean Denucé,Brieven
en documenten betreffend Jan Breughel I en II, (Bronnen voor de geschiedenis van deVlaamsche kunst) (Antwerp, 1934), 8. For the diary, see ibid., 139–60.
5. Jean Denucé, Brieven en documenten betreffend Jan Breughel I en II, (Bronnen voor degeschiedenis van de Vlaamsche kunst) (Antwerp, 1934), 7–8.
6. “Wenste van den man ontslagen waer.” Jean Denucé,Brieven en documenten betreffend JanBreughel I en II, (Bronnen voor de geschiedenis van de Vlaamsche kunst) (Antwerp, 1934), 86.
7. For the dwindling demand for Brueghel copies in the 1630s, see the biography of Pieter
Brueghel the Younger in this catalogue.
8. “4 stuxkens, synde de Historie van het Boek Genesis, oft Adamsleven.” Jean Denucé,Brieven
en documenten betreffend Jan Breughel I en II, (Bronnen voor de geschiedenis van deVlaamsche kunst) (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, (Bronnen voor degeschiedenis van de Vlaamsche kunst. Antwerp, 1934.
Hartkamp-Jonxis, Ebeltije and Smit, Hillie. European Tapestries in the Rijksmuseum.
Amsterdam, 2004.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection