Petrus Christus (; 1410/1420 – 1475/1476) was an Early Netherlandish painter active in

Bruges Bruges ( , nl, Brugge ) is the capital and largest City status in Belgium, city of the Provinces of Belgium, province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium, in the northwest of the country, and the sixth-largest city of the countr ...

from 1444, where, along with

Hans Memling Hans Memling (also spelled Memlinc; c. 1430 – 11 August 1494) was a painter active in Flanders, who worked in the tradition of Early Netherlandish painting. He was born in the Middle Rhine region and probably spent his childhood in Mainz. He ...

, he became the leading painter after the death of

Jan van Eyck Jan van Eyck ( , ; – July 9, 1441) was a painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Northern Renaissance art. A ...

. He was influenced by van Eyck and

Rogier van der Weyden Rogier van der Weyden () or Roger de la Pasture (1399 or 140018 June 1464) was an early Netherlandish painter whose surviving works consist mainly of religious triptychs, altarpieces, and commissioned single and diptych portraits. He was highly ...

and is noted for his innovations with linear perspective and a meticulous technique which seems derived from miniatures and

manuscript illumination An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, th ...

. Today, some 30 works are confidently attributed to him.Petrus Christus (active by 1444, died 1475/76)
. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 9 March 2014 The best known include the ''

Portrait of a Carthusian ''Portrait of a Carthusian'' is a painting in oils on oak panel by the Early Netherlandish painter Petrus Christus in 1446. The work is part of the Jules Bache Collection housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It is regarded ...

'' (1446) and '' Portrait of a Young Girl'' (); both are highly innovative in the presentation of the figure against detailed, rather than flat, backgrounds. For the period between the death of

in 1441 and

establishing himself in the city in the mid-1460s, Christus was the leading painter in Bruges, which was then the leading Netherlandish centre of painting. Christus was an anonymous figure for centuries, his importance not established until the work of modern art historians.

Giorgio Vasari Giorgio Vasari (, also , ; 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance Master, who worked as a painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, who is best known for his work '' The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculp ...

barely mentions him in his biographies of painters, written in the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...

, and near contemporary records merely list him amongst many others. In the early to mid-nineteenth century,

Gustav Waagen Gustav Friedrich Waagen (11 February 1794 – 15 July 1868) was a German art historian. His opinions were greatly respected in England, where he was invited to give evidence before the royal commission inquiring into the condition and future o ...

(who identified him French-style as "Pierre Christophsen") and Johann David Passavant were important in establishing Christus's biographical details and in attributing works to him.

Life

Petrus christus, Isabel of Portugal with St Elizabeth

Christus was born in Baarle, near

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

and

Breda Breda () is a city and municipality in the southern part of the Netherlands, located in the province of North Brabant. The name derived from ''brede Aa'' ('wide Aa' or 'broad Aa') and refers to the confluence of the rivers Mark and Aa. Breda has ...

. Long considered a student of and successor to

, his paintings have sometimes been confused with those of van Eyck. At the death of van Eyck in 1441, it is thought that Christus took over his master's workshop. Christus purchased his Bruges citizenship in 1444, exactly three years after van Eyck's death,Martens (1990), 5 taking advantage of a decree set down by

Philip the Good Philip III (french: Philippe le Bon; nl, Filips de Goede; 31 July 1396 – 15 June 1467) was Duke of Burgundy from 1419 until his death. He was a member of a cadet line of the Valois dynasty, to which all 15th-century kings of France belonge ...

allowing in men indebted to him after the Bruges Revolt of 1436–38. Had he been an active pupil in van Eyck's Bruges workshop in 1441, he would have received his citizenship automatically after the customary period of one year and one day.Martens (1990), 5–6 Christus may have been van Eyck's successor in the Bruges school, but perhaps not his pupil. Recent research reveals that Christus, long seen only in his predecessor's light, was an independent painter whose work shows just as much influence from, among others,

Dirk Bouts Dieric Bouts (born c. 1415 – 6 May 1475) was an Early Netherlandish painter. Bouts may have studied under Rogier van der Weyden, and his work was influenced by van der Weyden and Jan van Eyck. He worked in Leuven from 1457 (or possibly earlier) ...

Robert Campin Robert Campin (c. 1375 – 26 April 1444), now usually identified with the Master of Flémalle (earlier the Master of the Merode Triptych, before the discovery of three other similar panels), was the first great master of Early Netherlandish paint ...

and

Petrus Christus - Portrait of a Young Woman - Google Art Project

It is unknown whether Christus visited Italy, and brought style and technical accomplishments of the Northern European painters directly to

Antonello da Messina Antonello da Messina, properly Antonello di Giovanni di Antonio, but also called Antonello degli Antoni and Anglicized as Anthony of Messina ( 1430February 1479), was an Italian painter from Messina, active during the Early Italian Renaissance. ...

and other Italian artists, but it is known that his paintings were purchased by Italians from the large community of foreign merchants in Bruges. Indeed, nearly half of his paintings were commissioned by Italians, or have a

provenance Provenance (from the French ''provenir'', 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody or location of a historical object. The term was originally mostly used in relation to works of art but is now used in similar senses i ...

from Italy or Spain, or were soon copied in those countries. A document testifying to the presence of a "Piero da Bruggia" (Petrus from Bruges?) in Milan may suggest that he visited that city at the same time as Antonello, and the two artists may even have met. This might account for the remarkable similarities between the ''Portrait of a Man'' attributed to Christus in the

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 19 ...

and many of Antonello's portraits, including the supposed self-portrait in the

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...

in London. It would also explain how Italian painters learned about

oil painting Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest ...

and how Northern painters learned about linear perspective. Antonello, along with

Giovanni Bellini Giovanni Bellini (; c. 1430 – 26 November 1516) was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. He was raised in the household of Jacopo Bellini, formerly thought to have been his fath ...

, was one of the first Italian painters to use oil paint like his Netherlandish contemporaries. Further, Christus' ''Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints Francis and Jerome'' in Frankfurt, seemingly dated 1457 (the third digit is illegible), is the first known Northern picture to demonstrate accurate linear perspective. In 1462, Christus and his wife, Gaudicine, enrolled at the Confraternity of the Dry Tree, from which his '' Madonna of the Dry Tree'' may derive its name.Borobia, Mar.
The Virgin of the dry Treeca. 1465
.

Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza The Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum (in Spanish, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (), named after its founder), or simply the Thyssen, is an art museum in Madrid, Spain, located near the Prado Museum on one of the city's main boulevards. I ...

. Retrieved 2 August 2020 He was made a member of the

Guild of Saint Luke The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Evangelist Luke, the patron saint of artists, who was iden ...

and made dean of the guild in 1471. Bruges listed him dead in 1473, though the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

says he died in 1475 or 1476.

succeeded Christus as the next great painter in Bruges.

Works

Petrus christus, deposizione di bruxelles

Christus produced at least six signed and dated works, which form the basis for any other attributions to him. These are: the ''Portrait of Edward Grymeston'' (on loan to the National Gallery, London, 1446), the ''

'' (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1446), the so-called ''St. Eligius in His Shop'' (Metropolitan Museum of Art Robert Lehman Collection, New York, 1449), the ''Virgin Nursing the Child'' (now in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, 1449), the so-called ''"Berlin Altar Wings"'' with the Annunciation, Nativity, and Last Judgment (Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 1452), and the ''Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints Jerome and Francis'' ( Stadelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt-am-Main, 1457?). In addition, a pair of panels in the

Groeningemuseum The Groeningemuseum is a municipal museum in Bruges, Belgium, built on the site of the medieval Eekhout Abbey. It houses a collection of Flemish and Belgian painting covering six centuries, from Jan van Eyck to Marcel Broodthaers. The museum ...

in Bruges (showing the Annunciation and Nativity) bears a date of 1452, but its authenticity is suspect. The composition of a ''

Lamentation A lament or lamentation is a passionate expression of grief, often in music, poetry, or song form. The grief is most often born of regret, or mourning. Laments can also be expressed in a verbal manner in which participants lament about somethin ...

'', now at the

, seems so closely inspired a marble relief by

Antonello Gagini Antonello Gagini (1478–1536) was an Italian sculptor of the Renaissance, mainly active in Sicily and Calabria. Antonello belonged to a family of sculptors and artisans, originally from Northern Italy, but active throughout Italy, including Ge ...

in the cathedral at

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The city is noted for its ...

that it has been suggested that the picture may have been painted for an Italian client. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has five of the thirty paintings usually attributed to him. A late work, the reserved '' Portrait of a Young Girl'' (, Berlin) belongs among the masterworks of

Early Netherlandish painting Early Netherlandish painting, traditionally known as the Flemish Primitives, refers to the work of artists active in the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands during the 15th- and 16th-century Northern Renaissance period. It flourished especia ...

, marking a new development in Netherlandish portraiture. It no longer shows the sitter in front of a neutral background, but in a concrete space defined by the background wall panels. Christus had already perfected this format in his two portraits of 1446. The unknown woman, whose exquisite clothing suggests that she might come from France, radiates an aura of discretion and of nobility, while appearing slightly unreal in the elegant stylization of her form.Kemperdick (2006), 23 The ''Portrait of a Carthusian'' is the earliest known example of

panel painting A panel painting is a painting made on a flat panel of wood, either a single piece or a number of pieces joined together. Until canvas became the more popular support medium in the 16th century, panel painting was the normal method, when not paint ...

with a ''trompe-l'œil'' fly. Kandice Rawlings
Painted Paradoxes: The Trompe-L’Oeil Fly in the Renaissance
''Athanor'', vol. 26, 2008, pp. 7-13

Gallery

File:Petrus Christus Edward Grimston.jpg, ''Edward Grimston'', 1446.

, London. ''(On loan from the Earl of Verulam)'' File:Christus carthusian.jpg, ''

'', 1446.

, New York File:Petrus christus, sant'eligio nella bottega di un orafo 01.jpg, '' St. Eligius in His Workshop'', 1449. Metropolitan Museum of Art File:Annonciation - Petrus Christus.jpg, ''Nativity'', 1452. Gemäldegalerie File:La Virgen con el Niño, por Petrus Christus.jpg, ''Madonna and Child'', 1460–65.

Museo del Prado The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It is widely considered to house one of the world's finest collections of European art, dating from th ...

, Madrid File:Petrus christus, ritratto d'uomo con falcone.jpg, Silverpoint drawing of man with falcon File:Petrus Christus - The Virgin of the dry Tree - 1465.jpg, '' Madonna of the Dry Tree'', c. 1462–65.

Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum The Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum (in Spanish, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (), named after its founder), or simply the Thyssen, is an art museum in Madrid, Spain, located near the Prado Museum on one of the city's main boulevards. I ...

, Madrid File:Petrus Christus - The Last Judgement - WGA04844.jpg, ''The Last Judgement'', 1452. Gemäldegalerie File:Portrait of a Young Man c1460 Petrus Christus.jpg, ''Portrait of a Young Man'', c. 1450-60.

, London File:Petrus Christus - The Nativity - WGA04849.jpg, '' Nativity'', c. 1460s.

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of ch ...

, Washington, D.C.

Notes

References

* Ainsworth, Maryan Wynn et al., ''From Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art'', 2009, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009.
google books
* Kemperdick, Stephan. ''The Early Portrait, from the Collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein and the Kunstmuseum Basel''. Munich: Prestel, 2006. *Martens, Maximiliaan P.J. "New Information on Petrus Christus's Biography and the Patronage of His Brussels Lamentation." ''Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art.'' 20.1 (1990–1991): 5–23. Print. *Upton, Joel M.
Petrus Christus: His Place in Fifteenth-Century Flemish Painting
'. University Park and London: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990.

External links