WEISSENBRUCH, Jan Hendrik

Dutch painter, part of a family of artists, cousin of Jan Weissenbruch. He referred to himself and signed his work as Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch.

The first generation of the family included the amateur painter and collector Johannes Weissenbruch (1787-1834) and his brother, the engraver Johan Daniel Weissenbruch (1789-1858), three of whose sons were also artists: Jan Weissenbruch (1822-1880), who was widely known for his sun-drenched townscapes, the lithographer Frederick Hendrik Weissenbruch (1828-1887) and the engraver Isaac Weissenbruch (1826-1912). Johannes’s son Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch was a watercolour painter of landscapes and beach views and is regarded as one of the masters of the Hague School; a younger son, Frederik Adrianus Weissenbruch (1826-1882), was an engraver. The third generation included Jan Hendrik’s son Willem Johannes Weissenbruch (1864-1941), who was also a painter.

From 1840 Jan Hendrik attended drawing lessons with the Norwegian painter Johannes Löw, and from 1846 he was taught by Bartholomeus Johannes van Hove (1790-1880) at the Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten in The Hague. His early paintings clearly show the influence of van Hove and Andreas Schelfhout (1787-1870), although it is uncertain whether he was actually taught by the latter. His father, an avid collector, owned works by both artists.

Weissenbruch copied the works of the seventeenth-century Dutch artists and painted in the area surrounding The Hague, Haarlem, and Arnhem. He became a significant open-air and watercolour painter of the Hague School.