WHAT THIS SITE IS FOR

The purpose of this website is first, to be a place where information about the painter Jan Brueghel can be gathered, shared, and debated among scholars; second, to provide ways of furthering our understanding of how Brueghel and his studio produced this vast, complex body of work; and third, to be resource for any visitor who is interested in the artist’s works.

Our starting-point is a database of paintings compiled in 1998-2010 by Dr. Elizabeth Honig of U.C. Berkeley, referred to on the object pages as “Honig database.” The database contained entries on over 560 paintings that were either attributed to Brueghel in Klaus Ertz’s 1979 catalogue raisonnée, or had been on the art market since 1979 and seemed likely to be genuine works, or were recorded in photographs at either the RKD (The Hague) or the Rubenianum (Antwerp). Honig made provisional judgements about whether these works were authentic, studio works, or produced by imitators outside Brueghel’s immediate orbit. She also listed under these main paintings hundreds more copies and variants, mostly known from photographs at the RKD, that were definitely not autograph works by Brueghel. All of her basic catalogued paintings, many of their secondary copies, and others published in Klaus Ertz’s updated monograph (2008-2010), have their own pages in this site, so that we can consider questions of authenticity and interrelations among the multitude of works that have some claim to be associated with Brueghel.

We have also added most drawings attributed to Jan that are in public collections, and some that have been on the art market or are in private collections. We do not, however, possess the expertise to decide on attributions for that material; we rely on attributions by drawings scholars, and await the publication of Louisa Wood Ruby's catalogue of Jan's drawings.

Please note that our site is a work constantly in progress. New material is added frequently.

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