Hendrick ter Brugghen

Hendrick ter Brugghen (1588–1629) was born at The Hague, trained under Abraham Bloemaert in Utrecht, and died there at forty-one. He spent roughly a decade in Italy as a young man, and Caravaggio is recorded among his influences. He is the leading figure of the Utrecht Caravaggisti, the group of Dutch painters who brought Caravaggio's method back north after working in Rome. What distinguishes ter Brugghen from the others is that he did not simply borrow the dramatic lighting: he softened it, favouring cooler colour and a strange, tender handling of faces that is entirely his own. His work was largely forgotten for two centuries and only reassessed in the twentieth. Four works here, including Christ Crowned with Thorns, Esau Selling His Birthright, and Jacob Reproaching Laban — Old Testament subjects treated as close, half-lit human encounters.