Joannes van Houbraken

In the past he was erroneously identified with the Giovanni Battista Vanderbrachen or Jan-Baptist van den Broeck, a silk merchant and consul, who became a member of the Oratorio della Compagnia dei Mercanti in Messina in 1647 and who died in 1665 in Messina where he was buried at the Oratorium of the order of the San Franscesco dei Mercanti.

He received a commission from the order of San Francesco dei Mercanti in Messina in 1631 for a Mary with child and St. Francis.

Together with his son Hector he sent several shipments with brushes, water color paintings, gilded sculptures and a golden 'Virgin' with diamonds and rubies to Messina between December 1655 and July 1661.

[2] His son Hector or Ettore, who is believed to have been born in Antwerp later returned to Messina where he married a local woman who was the daughter of Nicola Francesco Maffei, an architect.

He is influenced by Rodriguez' interpretation of the work of Caravaggio,[4] His oldest known work was the Discovery of the bodies of St. Placidus and company, painted in the Church of Maria dell'Arco in Messina, now in the Interdisciplinary Regional Museum of Messina.

To him has also been attributed a series of the five senses in the Bellomo Palace Regional Gallery of which the date is unknown.

[4] His style shows the Flemish eye for detail and the dramatic effects of the southern Italian Caravaggist school with its emphasis on pathos.

The intense, melancholy drama of his works is heightened by the use of cold colors and strong light effects, which contrast with the otherwise muted palette.