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.