Documentation on the early career of Bartholomeus Breenbergh is limited but it appears that he was probably apprenticed to the landscape painter Paulus Bril in Rome after a brief traineeship in Amsterdam. Like his master, Breenbergh was to specialise in landscape painting and these beautiful compositions are always characterised by a light, often luminous yellow tone. Together with Cornelis van Poelenburgh, he was to rank as one of the most important Dutch Italianate painters of the period, depicting the Roman landscape with a distinctive Northern rendering and helping to bring this tradition back to the Netherlands.

Breenbergh lived in Amsterdam until 1619 and presumably on the insistence of his master he travelled to Rome where he met Poelenburgh. Together with Adam Elsheimer these artists were to be a major influence on his early work. From 1620 until 1627 he was to remain in Italy. At the age of thirty three he returned to Amsterdam, having spent some time in France, where he was known as 'Bartholomée'. In 1633 he married and remained in that city until his death in 1657. From c.1645 he began to paint predominantly narrative scenes, although much later his output begins to wane and it is thought that he became a merchant.

Breenbergh was also an accomplished portrait painter and draughtsman. While his portraits are exceptionally rare, his great many drawings remain in countless collections worldwide.

Museums where examples of the artist's work can be found include:

Angers, Cassel, Florence, Grenoble, Karlsruhe, London (British Museum, Courtauld and NG), Los Angeles (Getty), Munich (Alte Pinakothek), New York (Metropolitan), Paris (Louvre), San Francisco, Stockholm, and St. Petersburg.