BREUGHEL, Jan, a Flemish painter, son of Peeter Breughel, was born at Brussels about the year 1569. He first applied himself to painting flowers and fruits, and afterwards acquired considerable reputation by his landscapes and sea-pieces. After residing long at Cologne he travelled into Italy, where his landscapes, adorned with small figures, were greatly admired. He left a large number of pictures, chiefly landscapes, which are executed with great skill. Rubens made use of Breughel’s hand in the landscape part of several of his small pictures,—such as his Vertumnus and Pomona, the Satyr viewing the Sleeping Nymph, and the Terrestrial Paradise, which by some is regarded as the masterpiece of that great artist. Breughel died in 1642.

BREUGHEL, Peeter, a Flemish painter, was the son of a peasant residing in the village of Breughel near Breda. After receiving instruction in painting from Koek, whose daughter he married, he spent some time in France and Italy, and then went to Antwerp, where he was elected into the Academy in 1551. He finally settled at Brussels and died there. The subjects of his pictures are chiefly humorous figures, like those of D. Teniers; and if he wants the delicate touch and silvery clearness of that master, he has abundant spirit and comic power. He is said to have died about the year 1570 at the age of 60; other accounts give 1590 as the date of his death. Several other painters of the name Breughel attained to some distinction.