Jan Bruegel the older

Variant namesauktoriserad namnform: Jan Bruegel d.ä. stavningsvariant: Jan Brueghel the older

DatesBiographical dates: 1568 - 1625 Dead: dead 1625 Born: born 1568

Gender

Nationality

BiographyBiography: Born at Brussels into an important family of artists, Jan Brueghel I was the second son of the peasant painter Pieter Bruegel I. According to Van Mander (1604), Jan received his early training in watercolour painting from his maternal grandmother, the miniaturist Mayken Verhulst, while the Antwerp landscapist Pieter Goetkindt taught him to paint in oils. Van Mander also records Jan’s subsequent stay in Cologne, after which he travelled to Italy: he was recorded at Naples in June 1590 and was active in Rome from about 1592 to 1594. During this period, he found a protector in Cardinal Ascanio Colonna, who also employed Rubens’ brother Philip. In Rome he undoubtedly met the Flemish landscapist Paul Bril, with whom he collaborated, and the two artists had an important reciprocal influence on one another. He also met Cardinal Federico Borromeo, who became his patron and lifelong friend; their correspondence (see Denucé 1934) offers important insights into Brueghel’s art. As Archbishop of Milan, Borromeo offered Brueghel a place in his household in 1595. The artist returned to Antwerp by October 1596, the following year he became a master in the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke, and in 1599 he joined the guild of Romanists. On January 23 of that year he married Isabella de Jode, daughter of the engraver Gerard de Jode, and on September 13, 1601, their first son, Jan Brueghel II, was born. Jan I received his Antwerp citizenship in the same year and became sub-deacon of the painters’ guild, of which he eventually served as dean in 1602. In 1604 Jan purchased a house called “De Meerminne” (The Mermaid) in the Lange Nieuwstraat in Antwerp, travelled to Prague, and returned to Antwerp by the end of the same year. In 1606, the year following his marriage to Catharina van Marienberghe, he travelled to Nuremberg, and two years later, in 1608, he is mentioned in Brussels as a (non-resident) court painter to the Archdukes Albert and Isabella, the Habsburg regents of the Netherlands, a function he kept until his death. Jan also enjoyed a very prosperous career in Antwerp, receiving commissions from important patrons like the Emperor Rudolph II and King Sigismund III of Poland. Around 1613 he travelled to the Northern Netherlands on official business in the company of Rubens and Hendrick van Balen. In 1615, the Antwerp magistrates presented four of his paintings to the Archdukes Albert and Isabella. Three years later, in 1618, the city magistrates commissioned the 12 major painters of Antwerp to produce a represen- tative sample of their art for the Archdukes: Peter Paul Rubens, Frans Snyders, Josse de Momper II, Hendrick van Balen, Frans Francken II and Sebastiaen Vrancx, all collaborated on a single project, the Allegory of the Five Senses, under Brueghel’s direction. In 1619 Jan purchased a house called “Den Bock” (The Billygoat) in the Arembergstraat in Antwerp. Brueghel died on January 25, 1625, the victim of a cholera epidemic that also killed three of his children. Called “Velvet-”, “Flowers-” and “Paradise- Brueghel”, Jan’s reputation was earned as a painter of wonderfully detailed and exquisitely executed cabinet pictures. He specialized in small landscapes with figures and flower paintings. His only documented pupil was Daniel Seghers. Among his frequent collaborators were Peter Paul Rubens, Joos de Momper II, Hendrick de Clerck, Hendrick van Balen and Sebastiaen Vrancx. Jan did, however, have many imitators including his son Jan II, who as a young man took over his father’s studio after the latter’s unexpected death in 1625. More than 3000 paintings were formerly ascribed to Jan I, but no more than c. 450 can be correctly attributed to the artist. Jan often executed replicas and variant versions of his own works, probably while he still had access to the originals in the studio. As a result of the enormous popularity of, especially, his cabinet-size landscapes, a large number of copies of his compositions were also produced for the Antwerp art trade in the 17th- and early 18th-century.

External links