De Brie seeks to write an updated history of Dutch painting in the tradition of Karel van Mader. De Brie heavily used van Mader’s work, the Painter Book to cover the lives of historical artists from the Netherlands. His main focus in prose was, however, on the contemporary artists of the south.
De Brie was a notary by profession and an author of many plays. His strong literary background is evident in his artist biographies, beginning with laudatory eulogies in verse to the artists, followed by the lives themselves in prose.
Book one, which covers historical artists, consists entirely of poems of praise, with no prose writing whatsoever. Some of the eulogies are in Latin, while the rest of the text in Books two and three, were written in the Dutch vernacular.
De Brie’s book was very popular amongst artists and art collectors of his day. He is of value to art historians because of his first hand knowledge of contemporary artists who lived in the southern Netherlands and the city of Antwerp in Belgium.
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