Little is known of his early life. In his three-volume
Schouburg,
Arnold Houbraken mentioned him in his first volume with an entreaty to readers to write to him with more news of Breenbergh's biography. He had been told that Breenberg was born in
Utrecht and had been a master of
Cornelis van Poelenburgh, which he knew to be impossible from the facts that he already had, namely "the birth of Poelenburg in 1586 and the death of Breenberg in 1660." According to the Netherlands Institute for Art History (
RKD), Breenbergh was born in the Netherlands town of
Deventer, but after the death of his father in 1607 moved away with the rest of his family, probably to
Hoorn. There he was a contemporary of
Jacques Waben and possibly received his first training, though his first teacher is now supposed to be "one of those many forgotten Amsterdam landscape painters of the 1610s". His registered teachers are
Pieter Lastman and
Jacob Symonsz Pynas. and was heavily influenced by another Fleming resident, the
landscape painter
Paul Bril. From 1623, however, he came under the spell of Italian landscapes by the somewhat older
Cornelis van Poelenburgh—indeed, the works of Breenbergh and van Poelenburgh are sometimes difficult to tell apart. He was also influenced by
Nicolaes Moeyaert. Breenbergh in his turn influenced the French landscape-painter
Claude Lorrain (who arrived in the city about 1620). In about 1620 Breenbergh became one of the founders of the Roman society of Dutch and Flemish painters, the
Bentvueghels, among whom he was nicknamed "het fret" (
the ferret). In 1630 Breenbergh returned to Amsterdam. In 1633 he married, and received a yearly wage of 60 pounds from the court of king
Charles I of Britain. He remained in Amsterdam until his death, where he made popular paintings and etchings of Italian buildings. There he was influenced by the pre-
Rembrandtists such as
Pieter Lastman and
Nicolaes Moeyaert, but he placed their Biblical and mythological scenes in Italian landscapes. His only registered pupil is
Jan de Bisschop, who was his pupil in the 1640s until 1648. He influenced the painters
Jan Linsen,
Scipione Compagno,
Laurens Barata,
Charles Cornelisz. de Hooch,
Pieter Anthonisz. van Groenewegen,
Francois van Knibbergen, and
Catharina van Knibbergen. ==References==