Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch - Shell cart - Google Art Project

Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch, whose Christian name was Hendrik Johannes, was born into a family of artists of which he and his cousin Jan (1822—1880) were the main representatives. In order to distinguish him from his cousin, who was almost the same age and painted with a plain technique and brilliant colours-above all city landscapes-Jan Hendrik was also known as "de vrolijke Weiss" (a play on words that means "the cheerful melody"). At the beginning of his career, Weissenbruch received drawing classes from Johannes Low for three years. Later on he was trained by scenery painter Bart van Hove (17901880) and attended night classes at the Academy of the Hague. In 1849, two years after Weissenbruch staged his first exhibition, the Teylers Museum in Haarlem acquired one of his panoramic landscapes. However, that early success did not last very long. In spite of the prestige he had earned among his colleagues, he did not achieve public acknowledgement until the late 1880s.