Pierre Brébiette
Illustration — The Rape of Proserpina by Pluto Pierre Brébiette (1598? - 1642) was a French painter and etcher. Brebiette was born in Mantes-sur-Seine and lived and worked in Italy, much of the time in Rome, from 1617 to circa 1625. He and his wife, who died in 1637, had seven children together.
Also recorded as Pierre Brebiette · Brébiette · Brebietty · Brebiette
Pierre Brébiette

Pierre Brébiette · The Cleveland Museum of Art · Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Alfred in memory of Carey Croneis · CC0
- Born
- 1598 · Mantes-la-Jolie.
- Nationality
- France
- Occupation
- painter · artist · printmaker · draftsperson
- Fields
- visual arts
- Languages
- French
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
Illustration — The Rape of Proserpina by Pluto Pierre Brébiette (1598? - 1642) was a French painter and etcher. Brebiette was born in Mantes-sur-Seine and lived and worked in Italy, much of the time in Rome, from 1617 to circa 1625. He and his wife, who died in 1637, had seven children together.
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Pierre Brébiette. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q3384223 · wikipedia · Pierre Brébiette
In this article
Biography
Biography
Many of his etchings and some of his drawings have been preserved, but so far only one of his signed paintings has been positively identified and widely accepted as his work. That work, an oil on canvas entitled The Rape of Proserpina by Pluto, is now in the Picot collection within the collections of the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie de Châlons-en-Champagne. Brebiette's paintings were popular enough in the mid-17th century to inspire at least ten known engravings marked as having been designed based upon his paintings. While some of the themes of Brebiette's works are biblical, based upon the remaining engravings of his paintings by others and etchings by his own hand, he seems to have mainly chosen classical Greco-Roman mythology for his topics. Paola Bassani Pacht, who published an exhibition catalogue on Pierre Brébiette together with Sylvain Kerspern for the Musée des Beaux Arts d'Orleans in 2001, has attributed a large Neptune Calmant la Tempête as being Brébiette's. This oil on canvas, size 111.7 x 148 cm, was formerly at the Galerie Alexis Bordes in Paris, and is now in a private Paris collection. The painting was discovered by Gui Rochat as French 18th century in Christie's South Kensington April 13, 2011, lot 178. An unsigned Crucifixion at the église Notre-Dame-en-Vaux in Châlons-en-Champagne is also attributed to Brébiette (classified as a Monument historique in 1907).
The recorded working language is French. The field of work recorded is visual arts. Places of work recorded in the authority are Rome, Venice and Paris. Work by Pierre Brébiette is recorded in the collections of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Auckland Art Gallery, National Gallery of Victoria and Nationalmuseum.
![Telephus (son of Hercules) cured of a potentially fatal wound with some rust from Achilles' spear, with which he had originally been wounded. Engraving after P. Brebiette, 16--., [between 1600 and 1699], by Pierre Brébiette](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/L0070287/full/800,/0/default.jpg)
Telephus (son of Hercules) cured of a potentially fatal wound with some rust from Achilles' spear, with which he had originally been wounded. Engraving after P. Brebiette, 16--., [between 1600 and 1699], by Pierre Brébiette
Pierre Brébiette · Wellcome Collection, London · Wellcome Collection
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Mantes-la-Jolie.
Birth place
Paris.
Death place
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Fiche BNF
- 2.Charles Picot, collectionneur, catalogue de l'exposition du musée des beaux-arts et d'archéologie de Châlons-en-Champagne, 2008.
- 3.Paola Pacht Bassani, Seule la peinture... Pierre Brebiette, Orléans, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 2001.
- 4.Barbara Brejon de Lavergnée dir., Dessins français du XVIIe siècle. Collection du département des Estampes et de la Photographie, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 2014, p. 50-53.
- 5.Base Palissy PM51000165 Le Christ entre les deux larrons
- 6.L'Enlèvement de Proserpine
- 7.Base Joconde 03070000202 L'Enlèvement de Proserpine
- 8.Base Palissy PM77002236 Jésus chez Marthe et Marie
- 9.Neptune calmant la tempête
- 10.Fille jouant du luth
- 11.Junon, Minerve et Vénus
- 12.Vieille femme
- 13.Paysan avec une canne
- 14.Paysan avec une canne, trois quarts à gauche
- 15.Le Déluge
- 16.Triomphe d'Amphit(rite
- 17.Base Joconde 50350001703 Jeune fille tenant des pincettes et un gril
- 18.Persée décapitant Méduse avec l'aide de Minerve
- 19.Le Char de Vénus
- 20.Apollon et les muses, Pierre Brébiette. Cat'zArts.
- 21.Brugerolles, Emmanuelle, Le Dessin en France au XVIIe siècle dans les collections de l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, Ecole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts éditions, 2001, p. 76-80, Cat. 18.
- 22.Opera diversa
- 23.Autoportrait
- 24.Portrait de François Quesnel
- 25.Le Sacrifice d'Abraham
- 26.Deux philosophes observant une éclipse
- 27.La Tentation de saint Antoine
- 28.Allégorie du retour de Brebiette à Paris
- 29.Diogène et Alexandre le Grand
- 30.Élie et Élisée
- 31.Des Anges donnent des fruits à la Sainte Famille endormie
- 32.Base Joconde 05120004384 Vierge et l'Enfant survolant le marais
- 33.Dessins français du musée des Beaux-Arts d’Orléans. Le Trait et l’Ombre. musée des Beaux-Arts. 2022. 9 788836 651320.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 13
- Paola Bassani Pacht, Barbara Brejon de Lavergnée (dir.), Cahiers du dessin français n° 19 : Pierre Brebiette (vers 1598-1642), Paris, De Bayser, 2017.
- Paola Bassani Pacht, Pierre Brébiette, Neptune calmant la tempête, cat. exp. Paris, Galerie Alexis Bordes, 14- , Paris, Galerie Alexis Bordes, 2014.
- Dominique Cordellier, « Le Maître de Flore, Toussaint Dubreuil et Pierre Brébiette. Observations sur quelques interprètes français de la manière de Michel-Ange », dans Claudia Echinger-Maurach, Achim Gnann, Joachim Poeschke (éd.), Michelangelo als Zeichner, actes du colloque international de Vienne, Albertina Museum, 19-20 novembre 2010, Münster, Rhema, 2013, p. 97-115.
- Paola Bassani Pacht, Annick Notter, « Redécouverte de Brébiette : une expression du génie français sous Louis XIII », L'Estampille L'Objet d'art, 365, 2002, 365, p. 46-55.
- Paola Bassani Pacht, Sylvain Kerspern, Annick Notter, Seule la peinture... Pierre Brebiette (1598?-1642), cat. exp. Orléans, musée des Beaux-Arts, 2001, Orléans, musée des Beaux-Arts, 2001.
- Paola Bassani Pacht, « Nuove proposte per Pierre Brébiette pittore », Prospettiva, 93-94, 1999, p. 176-183.
- Paola Bassani Pacht, « Brebiette, Lallemand, Vignon : feuilles inédites ou réattribuées », dans Dessins français aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, actes du colloque, Paris, Ecole du Louvre, 24- , p. 85-103.
- Jacques Thuillier, « Pierre Brébiette dessinateur. Essai de chronologie », dans Hommage au dessin. Mélanges en hommage à Roseline Bacou, Rimini, Galleria Editrice, 1996, p. 273-323.
- Odile Cortet, Nathalie Coural, Catherine Haviland, 'Robert Mallet, et al., « Un Tableau signé de Pierre Brébiette », Histoire de l'art, 32, 1995, p. 55-61.
- Patrick Ramade, « Vignon, Lallement, Brébiette : quelques notes », dans Claude Vignon et son temps, actes du colloque, Tours (28- ), Mayenne, 1998, p. 109-115.
- Jacques Thuillier, « Du "maniérisme" romain à l'"atticisme" parisien : Louis Brandin, Jean Boucher, Pierre Brébiette, Laurent de La Hyre », dans Pierre Rosenberg, Nathalie Volle, et al., La donation Suzanne et Henri Baderou au musée de Rouen. Peintures et dessins de l’Ecole française, Paris, Etudes de la revue du Louvre et des musées de France, éd. de la réunion des musées nationaux, 1980, p.23-31.
- A. Brulé, « Pierre Brébiette, précurseur », L’amateur d’estampes, n°11, 1932, p. 65-77, 103-114.
- Léon Rosenthal, « Pierre Brébiette, graveur français », Gazette des Beaux-Arts, t.V, 4ème période, , p. 37-52.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 17 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Prints
4,138 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Pierre AudouinEngraver
- Pierre AyotEngraver
- Pierre BeljambeEngraver
- Pierre BouillonEngraver
- Pierre Charles BaquoyEngraver
- Pierre Claude François DelormeEngraver
- Pierre DaretEngraver
- Pierre DrevetEngraver
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Pierre Brébiette?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.