Jan Brueghel the Elder: 8 works

'The son of the great Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Jan Brueghel was active in Italy from 1590 to 1596 and then in Antwerp, where he worked together with his friend Peter Paul Rubens, among others.'

'Jan Brueghel the Elder painted this festive scene on a thin sheet of copper.'

'Later examples of this subject, also by Jan Brueghel (Prado, dated 1623), depict the Archdukes themselves watching the festivities, as the city-dwellers do here.'

'Based on an analysis of the stylistic characteristics of the Budapest work, it can be dated to 1595-1596, towards the end of Jan Brueghel's sojourn in Italy. By then, after several years in Rome, he had moved to Milan, accompanying his patron, Cardinal Federico Borromeo, for whom he made an entire series of landscapes.'

'Jan Brueghel, whose delicate brushwork earned him the name Velvet Brueghel, was an artist of remarkable versatility.'

'In 1606 Jan Brueghel the Elder, theson of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, painted the earliest of his surviving still lifes of flowers (Milan, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana) for the author of the above words, the archbishop of Milan, Federigo Borromeo (1564--1631).'

'While he also painted landscapes and other motifs, in this type of still life he found one of his most important themes. He had a great ability to put these arrangements together, in addition to a meticulous craft, always based on working from reality.'

'The story of Noah's ark provided a subject well suited to Jan Brueghel the Elder's descriptive abilities.'