Jan van der Brugge

'Portrait of Jan van der Brugge, engraved by himself after a painting by Nicolas de Largillière.

Jan van der Bruggen (1649 – c. 1699) was a Flemish Baroque painter and engraver.

Biography

Van der Bruggen was born in Brussels. According to Houbraken he was a great admirer of Raymond Lafage, who could draw a crowd in a tavern with his ingenious method of drawing a complicated version of the Pharaoh entering the red sea in two hours, from what appeared to be random scratches on a piece of paper. His student François Boitard could repeat this trick, but not quite as well and demonstrated this to Houbraken in London in 1709.[1]

Van der Brugge's engraved portrait dated 1689 with a poem at the bottom declaring his admiration for Lafage was written (in part) by Jean de La Fontaine.[2] It was made to go with a set of prints in memory of Lafage that Van der Brugge produced that year, that he sold from his house in Paris.[2]

According to the RKD he became a master in the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke in 1679, but he moved later to Paris, where he produced a set of engravings. He is noted as a genre painter, but no works are known today.[3] He died in Antwerp.

References

  1. (Dutch) Joan vander Brugge Biography in De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (1718) by Arnold Houbraken, courtesy of the Digital library for Dutch literature
  2. 2.0 2.1 Oeuvres de La Fontaine, Oeuvres Diverses Tome II, Volume 6. p. 300.
  3. "Jan van der Bruggen". Rkd.nl.