Pieter Brueghel the Younger ( , ; ; between 23 May and 10 October 1564 – between March and May 1638)), which produced for the local and export market, contributed to the international spread of his father's imagery.
Traditionally Pieter Brueghel the Younger was nicknamed , on the belief that he was the author of several paintings with fantastic depictions of fire and grotesque imagery. These paintings have now been attributed to his brother Jan Brueghel the Elder.
Life
thumb|A country brawl
thumb|Drunkard on an egg
Pieter Brueghel the Younger was born in Brussels, the oldest son of the famous sixteenth-century Netherlandish painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder (known as "Peasant Brueghel") and Mayken Coecke van Aelst. His mother was the daughter of the prominent artist Pieter Coecke van Aelst (already deceased at the time of Pieter's birth) and artist and print publisher Mayken Verhulst. Mayken Verhulst was an accomplished artist in her own right, known for her miniature paintings. The Brueghel family lived in the centre of Brussels in the home of Mayken Verhulst. In 1569, when Pieter the younger was only five years old, his father died. Following the death of his mother in 1578, Pieter, together with his brother Jan Brueghel the Elder (also referred to as "Velvet Brueghel", "Paradise Breughel" and "Flower Breughel") and sister Maria, were raised by their maternal grandmother Mayken Verhulst. According to the biographer and art theorist Karel van Mander, who published a 'Life' of Pieter Bruegel the Elder in his 1604 Schilder-boeck (Painter Book), Mayken Verhulst provided her grandson Jan with artistic training. On that basis it has been assumed traditionally that, like his brother Jan, Pieter also received his initial artistic instruction from his maternal grandmother. Doubts have been raised, however, over Mayken Verhulst's role in the training of Jan Brueghel the Elder as Jan reportedly lived in Brussels from his birth in 1568 until 1583, while Mayken moved to Mechelen long before he had reached the age to start his artistic training. It is more likely he learned painting from relatives working as tapestry designers in Brussels and received from his maternal grandmother Mayken Verhulst only training in watercolour techniques, such as miniature painting. A similar training pattern may have been followed by Pieter Brueghel the Younger.
Early in 1583, Pieter and Jan moved to Antwerp. Van Coninxloo's mother Adriana van Doornicke was the sister of the first wife of Pieter Coecke van Aelst who was Pieter's grandfather. His teacher was a Protestant and was forced to flee Antwerp in 1585 after the Fall of Antwerp. Pieter Brueghel the Younger is admitted as an independent master of the Guild of Saint Luke of Antwerp in 1585, enrolling as one of the 'free master's sons' ().
It is not known exactly when Brueghel established his own independent studio after becoming an independent master. His first surviving dated painting dates to 1593, several years later. It is however known that from 1589 he was established in a house in Antwerp located on the Bogaardestraat, near to the junction with Sint-Antoniusstraat. The house, which he rented, was located in a poorer part of town, nestled amongst small shopkeepers' houses and at least one brothel, and comprised a front and rear building containing a large studio where Brueghel could work, store materials and, presumably, finished works. He lived at the property with his wife Elisabeth Goddelet (or Godelet), whom he married in 1588 and with whom he had seven children between 1589 and 1597, many of whom died young.
The precise date of Brueghel's death is not known. His name appears in the register of Antwerp's Guild of St. Luke in a section recording funerary debts for the year 1638, indicating that he died during the Guild year 1637–38.
Work
General
Pieter Brueghel the Younger painted landscapes, religious subjects, proverbs, and village scenes. A few flower still-life paintings by Pieter have been recorded.
He and his workshop were prolific copyists of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's most famous compositions. His name and work were largely forgotten in the 18th and 19th centuries until he was rediscovered in the first half of the 20th century. The painting shows his interest in and close observation of village life. Pieter Brueghel the Younger's workshop made many copies of the composition in different formats. There exist 19 signed and dated versions of this work (from between 1615 and 1622) out of some 25 originals and 35 questionable versions. Another original composition by Pieter Brueghel the Younger are four small tondos representing the Four Stages of the River (all at the National Gallery Prague). As his style never evolved from the manner of his early career it is difficult to date his work. His work is often the only source of knowledge about works of his father that are lost.
The subjects of the copied works cover the entire range of themes and works by Pieter the Elder, including specific religious compositions on both the grand and the small scale. The principal subjects are proverb and peasant scenes of his father.
The most frequently copied work of his father was the Winter Landscape with Skaters and a Bird-trap. This work was reproduced by Pieter Brueghel the Younger and his workshop at least 60 times. Of these copies 10 are signed and 4 are dated (1601, 1603, 1616 and 1626). The next most popular work of Pieter the Elder was the Adoration of the Magi in the Snow of which Pieter Brueghel the Younger and his workshop produced about 30 copies.
The workshop also produced no less than 25 copies of Pieter Brueghel the Elder's St John the Baptist Preaching, the original of which is widely believed to be the picture dated 1566, in the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest. Some of the copies are held in the collections of museums such as the Hermitage Museum, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, the National Museum Kraków, the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn, the Stedelijk Museum Wuyts-Van Campen en Baron Caroly and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes. Some of the copies are signed and dated. The quality and the large number of versions produced by Brueghel the Younger suggest that he had first-hand knowledge of his father's original. Scholars have contended that Brueghel the Elder's original picture offered a coded comment on the religious debates that raged in the Low Countries during the 1560s and that it represented a clandestine sermon as held by the Protestant reformers of that time.