Jan Brueghel the Elder (also known as the Velvet Brueghel) was the third child of Pieter Brueghel the Elder and Mayken Coecke. His brother was Pieter Brueghel the Younger. Among his children, Jan Brueghel the Younger also became a painter, Paschasia married Hieronymus van Kessel in 1624, and another daughter married David Teniers the Younger. 

 

His father, Pieter the Elder, passed away a year after Jan’s birth, and his mother died nine years later. According to Karel van Mander’s Schilder-boeck (1604), Jan Brueghel learned to paint in watercolor from his grandmother, Mayken Verhulst, and to paint in oils from the little-known artist Pieter Goetkindt. In 1589, he traveled to Italy, possibly via Cologne. By 1590, he was mentioned in Naples, and from 1592 to 1595, he stayed in Rome, where he met Paul Bril, Hans Rottenhammer, and his lifelong patron and friend, Cardinal Federico Borromeo. In 1595 and 1596, Brueghel worked for the cardinal in Milan. After May 30, 1596, he began his return journey to Antwerp, where he was recorded in October of that year. 

 

In 1597, Jan Brueghel joined the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke. On January 23, 1599, he married Isabella de Jode, the daughter of Gerard de Jode. Their son, Jan (“the Younger”), born in 1601, had Rubens as his godfather and would also become a renowned painter. That same year, Jan Brueghel registered as a citizen of Antwerp, enabling him to become dean of the guild. In 1603, his daughter Paschasia was born, and his wife, Isabella, passed away. Brueghel spent the summer of 1604 at Emperor Rudolf II’s court in Prague. Upon his return, he purchased the house "De Meerminne" on Lange Nieuwstraat. The next year, he married Catharina van Mariënburg. The couple had eight children, including the painter Ambrosius Brueghel.

 

In 1606, Brueghel was appointed court painter to Archduke Albert and Infanta Isabella of Spain in Brussels. Around 1613, he traveled to the Northern Netherlands with Peter Paul Rubens and Hendrik van Balen. Brueghel was one of the most sought-after painters in Antwerp, alongside Rubens, with whom he collaborated frequently. Brueghel spent the rest of his life in Antwerp. He died at the age of 57 from cholera, along with three of his children. Among his pupils were the landscape painter Abraham Govaerts and the flower painter Daniël Seghers.

 

According to van Mander, Jan Brueghel the Elder was “held in very high esteem, making small landscapes, and very small images, for which he is exceptionally gifted”. Jan Brueghel’s extensive painted oeuvre includes history paintings, floral still lifes, allegorical and mythological scenes, mountain and forest landscapes, as well as river and seascapes. Other artists, such as Hans Rottenhammer and Hendrik van Balen, often painted figures in his landscapes or floral garlands, while Brueghel collaborated on works with Rubens, van Balen and others. 

 

He was a versatile and productive artist, who practiced many genres and introduced several that were completely new to Flemish art. He contributed hugely to the development of flower still lifes, land- and seascapes, battle scenes and hellscapes. As an innovator, he introduced allegories of the elements and the senses, flower garlands, paradise landscapes and kunstkammer paintings. Jan I Brueghel was also an excellent draughtsman, who left behind a body of a few hundred drawings, mostly landscapes but also historical depictions and figure studies. 

 

The present work is a recently rediscovered addition to Jan I’s drawn oeuvre. To the right, it depicts three elegant ladies coming up a hillock, while to the left their travel party awaits their return. The drawing was possibly a sketch for a larger composition. Interestingly, the artist combined two distinct styles in this sheet: while the figure studies to the right are executed in brush and wash, the travel party to the left is done in pen and ink exclusively. This gives the whole the appearance of a study sheet, though narratively both parts go together well. 

 

Stylistically, the brush and wash figures are close to several other figure studies by the artist, such as his Group of Peasants from Budapest (Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest, acc. no. 1762) and his Standing Gentlewoman in Berlin (Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, KdZ 9621). The traveling party to the left of the drawing corresponds more closely to other pen studies by the artist such as his Study Sheet With different Figures from Budapest (Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest, acc. no. 1763) or his Study with Riders, Figures and Cattle in Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, inv. RP-T-00-593). Finally, the very quickly sketched trees to the upper left of the present drawing are very close to those in Jan I Brueghel’s Street View at Spa, recently sold at auction in London (Rosebery's, 9 July 2024, lot 37).

 

It is no coincidence that the Street View at Spa (109 x 178 mm) and the present sheet are stylistically close, however, since they form part of a group of drawings, all similar in size, which Brueghel made when he was in Spa, in August of 1612.  One such drawing, depicting the Pouhon Fountain in Spa, is in the Royal Library of Belgium (inv. no. S.V 85639; 108 x 158 mm), while a group of two other drawings depicting elegant figures at Spa was sold at Christie’s London in 2004 (6 July 2004, lot 163; 116 x 178 mm and 111 x 178 mm; ill. 8). Interestingly, in both the drawing in the Royal Library in Belgium as in the pair sold at Christie’s, the figures are seen carrying the same walking sticks - as bearing arms at Spa was forbidden - as the three woman in the foreground of the present drawing. It is therefore most probable that the present drawing depicts travelers on their way to Spa, and thus would have also been made in August of 1612. As all sheets are very similar in size, they most likely all originate from the same sketchbook, which Brueghel must have brought with him on his trip to Spa.