(1588-1629)
Terbrugghen was born in Deventer, Holland, and taken to Utrecht as an infant. He went to Italy in c. 1603, and spent a decade in Rome and visiting Milan and other major cities. He returned to Utrecht in 1614 where he became one of the leading figures among the Utrecht Caravaggists. His Calling of St. Matthew (1621; Utrecht, Centraal Museum) borrows heavily from Caravaggio's painting of the same subject in the Contarelli Chapel, Rome (1599-1600, 1602). The diagonal formed by the light entering the room, the theatrical costumes, eyeglasses worn by the elderly man, and crude types, all stem from Caravaggio's work. His Bagpipe Player (1624; Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum) was inspired by Caravaggio's young, sensuous boys, while the cascading of figures in his St. Sebastian Attended by St. Irene (1625; Oberlin, Allen Memorial Art Museum) borrows compositionally from the Italian master's Entombment (1603-1604; Vatican, Pinacoteca).
Historical dictionary of Renaissance art. Lilian H. Zirpolo. 2008.