Jan Jacob Zuidema Broos is born in Vorden in 1833. His artistic talents were apparent early on and at the age of 19 he left for Amsterdam. Over the following years he took various study trips to Germany and lived a while in Brussels and Paris. Whilst in Paris he painted fans for the Russian court, and he is known to have composed operettas and painted stage sets during this period. Around 1870 he returned to Paris for good, where he died in 1882.

He painted very detailed townscapes and also he painted and drew people socializing outdoors and narrative genre scenes bathing in warm sunlight.