[4] From this unsure footing, the artist's son Richard ter Brugghen sought to rehabilitate his father's reputation as a painter in the early 18th century.
Later that year, on 5 August 1707, Richard presented the government council of Deventer with four paintings of the Evangelists, to be hung in the Town Hall as a permanent memorial to his father.
[7] There was a cadet of the same name serving in the army of Ernst Casimir of Nassau-Dietz in the spring of 1607, and for this reason, Ter Brugghen is thought to have been in Italy, but only in that year, rather than as previously believed in 1604 (inferred as it was from the inscription on the Bodart print).
[2] He is already listed as a member of the Utrecht painter's guild in 1616, and on 15 October of that year he married Jacomijna Verbeeck, his elder brother Jan's stepdaughter.
His paintings were characteristic for their bold tenebroso technique–the contrast produced by clear, bright surfaces alongside sombre, dark sections–but also for the social realism of the subjects, sometimes charming, sometimes shocking or downright vulgar.
Ter Brugghen's favourite subjects were half-length figures of drinkers or musicians, but he also produced larger-scale religious images and group portraits.
His treatment of religious subjects can be seen reflected in the work of Rembrandt, and elements of his style can also be found in the paintings of Frans Hals and Johannes Vermeer.