Less prolific and less well-known than a number of his family members, his oeuvre is not very well understood and is believed to comprise Baroque still lifes, garland paintings as well as landscapes.

[3] As his father died when Ambrosius was only seven years old, he was placed under the guardianship of prominent painters Hendrick van Balen, Cornelis Schut and Pieter de Jode the Elder.

A vanitas still life discovered in 1966 of a large vase of flowers marked AB was attributed to Ambrosius but it is now given to Adriaen van Nieulandt.

[7] The only painting that has been attributed to the artist with some level of certainty is the Holy Virgin and Child in a flower garland (Saint James Church, Antwerp).

This painting falls in the genre of garland paintings, a special type of still life developed in Antwerp by artists including his father Jan Brueghel the Elder, his guardian Hendrick van Balen, Frans Francken the Younger, Peter Paul Rubens and Daniel Seghers.

This genre was inspired by the cult of veneration and devotion to Mary prevalent at the Habsburg court (then the rulers over the Southern Netherlands) and in Antwerp generally.