In his three-volume Schouburg, Arnold Houbraken mentioned him in his first volume with an entreaty to readers to write to him with more news of Breenbergh's biography.

"[1] Houbraken never received the information he requested, though he mentioned Breenbergh again in his second volume in a list of 59 competent painters who were contemporaries of Abraham Bloemaert and Paulus Potter.

There he was a contemporary of Jacques Waben and possibly received his first training, though his first teacher is now supposed to be "one of those many forgotten Amsterdam landscape painters of the 1610s".

In about 1620 Breenbergh became one of the founders of the Roman society of Dutch and Flemish painters, the Bentvueghels, among whom he was nicknamed "het fret" (the ferret).

[3] There he was influenced by the pre-Rembrandtists such as Pieter Lastman and Nicolaes Moeyaert, but he placed their Biblical and mythological scenes in Italian landscapes.