As to his life little is known.

Tradition says that he drank and dissipated his earnings, while his work is evidence that he knew inn life with some particularity; but his epitaph calls him "a man of great mind who rejected every splendour of the world and who despised gain and riches".

Brouwer, who was born about 1606, was put by his mother, a dressmaker at Haarlem, into the studio of Frans Hals.

Hals bullied him, as he bullied his first wife.

Escaping to Amsterdam, Brouwer became a famous painter, his pictures being acquired, among others, by Rembrandt in his wealthy days, and by Rubens.