Jasper Broers

His mother Suzanna Jegers sent him at the age of 13 to study painting with Jan Baptist van der Meiren, a landscape and battle painter.

[4] The artist had a preference for battle scenes involving cavalry engagements at close range placed in a sweeping and dramatic landscape.

[8] His small battle-pieces were painted in a manner close to that of Jan van Huchtenburg and Karel Breydel.

He would place the battle action in the two compositions at opposite sides of the canvases so as to create a comparatively free space in the middle of the picture.

The motif of the illuminated white horse was often used by the Dutch battle painter Philips Wouwerman.

Unlike contemporary Flemish battle painters Constantijn Francken and Pieter Verdussen who painted the same battle from an undramatic bird's-eye view, Broers tried to maintain the drama in his composition by moving the action closer and placing it at nightfall allowing him to exploit light effects of fire and smoke.

With the light and sometimes nervous application of the pen on the paper angular and the edgy and at times closely curled outlines, he shows in this drawing that he had found his own artistic language.