Jan Brueghel the Younger

Jan Brueghel the Younger was born into the most famous painting family in Flanders. His grandfather was Pieter Bruegel the Elder, painter of peasant weddings and snowy villages, and his father was Jan Brueghel the Elder, the Velvet Brueghel known for exquisite flowers and paradise landscapes.

In 1625, while the young Jan was travelling in Italy, his father and two of his siblings died in a cholera outbreak in Antwerp. He hurried home to take over the busy workshop at 24, and spent his career carrying on the family manner, delicate flower garlands, wooded landscapes, and small allegories, often close copies of his father's designs.

Like his father he collaborated with other specialists, including the workshop of Peter Paul Rubens, who would paint figures into a Brueghel landscape. He ran a large studio of his own and had eleven children, several of whom painted too, carrying the dynasty on another generation.