Hendrick ter Brugghen

Hendrick ter Brugghen (b. 1588–d. 1629) is best known as one of the Dutch artists who, along with his younger contemporaries Gerrit van Honthorst (b. 1592–d. 1656) and Dirck van Baburen (b. c. 1595–d. 1624) transmitted the style of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (b. 1571–d. 1610) to Dutch artists, with significant impact on the art of Jan Lievens (b. 1607–d. 1674), Rembrandt van Rijn (b. 1606–d. 1669), and, more distantly, Johannes Vermeer (b. 1632–d. 1675). Although he was likely born in the Hague, where his father was a civil servant, he moved with his family to Utrecht in the early years of the seventeenth century. In Utrecht, Ter Brugghen probably studied with Mannerist painter Abraham Bloemaert (b. 1564–d. 1651), and then he spent several years in Italy, possibly starting as early as 1607. While Italianate habits and motifs are clear in his art, any paintings made in Italy are lost. Additionally, while Ter Brugghen joined the newly formed artist guild in Utrecht upon his return in 1614, little of his work before 1619 survives. In the ensuing ten years before his premature death at age 42 in 1629, however, he produced a significant oeuvre consisting of religious paintings and half-length genre works. Unfortunately, no first owner information is known for any of Ter Brugghen’s paintings, complicating the understanding of his most significant works, such as the early monumental Christ Crowned with Thorns (1620, Copenhagen), the Crucifixion (c. 1625, New York), St. Sebastian Tended by Irene (c. 1625, Oberlin OH), The Concert (c. 1626, London), and depictions of Jacob, Laban, and Leah (1627 and 1628, Cologne and London). Early scholarship assumed Ter Brugghen was Catholic because his grandfather was a Catholic priest, his depiction of religious subjects, and the continued predominance of Catholicism in Utrecht. However, archival research showed that he married a Protestant, and all his children were baptized Protestant, suggesting an affinity for that faith. Ter Brugghen was little remarked in art criticism of his time; the most prominent mention, by Joachim von Sandrart (b. 1606–d. 1688), faulted him for his intense naturalism. Although several of his paintings sold for respectable prices at auction later in the seventeenth century, until the twentieth century Ter Brugghen’s reputation was overshadowed by the more conventional and successful Gerrit van Honthorst, to whom his works were sometimes ascribed in auction catalogues and inventories.