BRUEGEL, JAN, THE ELDER

born 1568, Brussels [now in Belgium] died Jan. 13, 1625, Antwerp byname Velvet Bruegel, Dutch Jan Bruegel De Oudere, or Fluwelen Bruegel, Bruegel also spelled Brueghel, or Breughel Flemish painter known for his still lifes of flowers and for his landscapes. The second son of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, born just before his father's death, he was reared by a grandmother and learned his art in Antwerp. In his youth, he went to Italy, where he painted under the patronage of Cardinal Federigo Borromeo, and later, in 1610, he was appointed court painter to the archdukes of Habsburg Austria. He worked primarily in Antwerp and was a friend of Peter Paul Rubens, with whom he sometimes collaborated in painting flowers, landscape, and animals in canvases in which Rubens supplied the human figures; an example is the Adam and Eve in Paradise (1620). His son Jan Bruegel II (160178) was also a painter, whose subjects and techniques were similar to (and often indistinguishable from) Jan Bruegel's.