Joseph van Bredael

Jozef van Bredael, Joseph van Bredael, or Josef van Bredael (14 August 1688 – 2 April 1739) was a Flemish painter known for Italianate landscapes and genre scenes of fairs, cattle markets and villages.

Jozef van Bredael was born into an artist family in Antwerp as the second son of Joris van Bredael and Johanna Maria van Diepenbeeck. His father as well as his grandfather Peeter van Bredael were painters. His uncles Jan Frans van Bredael and Jan Peeter van Bredael the Elder were also painters. His mother was the daughter of the prominent Baroque painter Abraham van Diepenbeeck. His brother Jan Peeter was also a painter who had a successful career in Vienna. Jozef trained under his father.

In 1706 Jozef van Bredael and his cousin Jan Frans entered into a contract with the Antwerp art dealer Jacob de Witte to produce copies after the paintings of Philips Wouwerman and Jan Brueghel the Elder for a number of years. Under the contract, Jozef was to receive for each copy he produced 6 guilders in the first year, 8 guilders in the second and 10 guilders in the third and fourth years plus a bonus of 1 shilling. At the end of the contract he would also get a blue coat. Jan Frans was paid a marginally higher fee as he was more experienced than his 18-year cousin but Jan Frans was also bound by an exclusivity obligation to work only for Jacob de Witte. Since they did not sign the copies, it is not possible to distinguish who was responsible for individual copies. It is possible that the not so scrupulous art dealer de Witte even sold these copies as originals since the copies were such good imitations of the style of the original artists. Jozef was originally contracted to work for de Witte for a period of four years but he may have worked for him for a longer period.

It is not clear when he moved to France. There is mention of him going to France to work in 1725. Here he worked as a copyist and made several copies after Claude Lorrain for Jean-François Leriget de La Faye, an important French art collector. Other historians state that Jozef only moved to France in 1735 or 1736 after he had completed the paperwork related to the inheritance of his brother Jan Peeter who had died in Vienna. He had appointed the Flemish painter Frans van Stampart, a court painter in Vienna, to act as the administrator of his brother’s estate. In France he became a member of the Royal Academy of the court of Louis d'Orléans, Duke of Orléans.

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