Petrus Christus (c. 1410/1420 – 1475/1476) was an Early Netherlandish painter active in
BrugesBruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country....
from 1444.
Christus was born in
Baarle-HertogBaarle-Hertog is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Antwerp. The municipality only comprises the town of Baarle-Hertog proper. On January 1 2006 Baarle-Hertog had a total population of 2,306. The total area is 7.48 km² which gives a population density of 308 inhabitants per...
, near
AntwerpAntwerp is the northernmost province both of the Flemish Region, also called Flanders, and of Belgium. It borders on the Netherlands and the Belgian provinces of Limburg, Flemish Brabant and East Flanders. Its capital is Antwerp which comprises the Port of Antwerp...
, Belgium. Long considered a student of and successor to
Jan van EyckJan van Eyck or Johannes de Eyck was a Flemish painter active in Bruges and considered one of the best Northern European painters of the 15th century....
, his paintings have sometimes been confused with those of Van Eyck. At the death of Van Eyck in 1441, it was reasoned, Christus took over his master's workshop. In fact, Christus purchased his Bruges citizenship in 1444, three years after Van Eyck's death.
Petrus Christus (c. 1410/1420 – 1475/1476) was an Early Netherlandish painter active in
BrugesBruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country....
from 1444.
Introduction
Christus was born in
Baarle-HertogBaarle-Hertog is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Antwerp. The municipality only comprises the town of Baarle-Hertog proper. On January 1 2006 Baarle-Hertog had a total population of 2,306. The total area is 7.48 km² which gives a population density of 308 inhabitants per...
, near
AntwerpAntwerp is the northernmost province both of the Flemish Region, also called Flanders, and of Belgium. It borders on the Netherlands and the Belgian provinces of Limburg, Flemish Brabant and East Flanders. Its capital is Antwerp which comprises the Port of Antwerp...
, Belgium. Long considered a student of and successor to
Jan van EyckJan van Eyck or Johannes de Eyck was a Flemish painter active in Bruges and considered one of the best Northern European painters of the 15th century....
, his paintings have sometimes been confused with those of Van Eyck. At the death of Van Eyck in 1441, it was reasoned, Christus took over his master's workshop. In fact, Christus purchased his Bruges citizenship in 1444, three years after Van Eyck's death. 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. In other words, Christus may be Van Eyck's successor in the Bruges school, but he was by no means his pupil. In fact, recent research reveals that Christus, long seen only in his great predecessor's light, was an independent painter whose work shows just as much influence from, among others,
Dirk BoutsDieric Bouts, also spelled Dirk, Dierick and Dirck was an Early Netherlandish painter.According to Karel van Mander in his Het Schilderboeck of 1604, Bouts was born in Haarlem and was mainly active in Leuven , where he was city painter from 1468...
,
Robert CampinRobert Campin , now usually identified with the artist known as the Master of Flémalle, is usually considered the first great master of Early Netherlandish painting...
and Rogier van der Weyden.
It is still unknown whether Christus visited
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
, and brought style and technical accomplishments of the greatest Northern European painters directly to
Antonello da MessinaAntonello da Messina, properly Antonello di Giovanni di Antonio was a Sicilian painter active during the Italian Renaissance...
and other Italian artists, or whether his paintings were purchased by Italians. 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 and many of Antonello's portraits, including the supposed self-portrait in the National Gallery in London. It would also be a convenient means of explaining how Italian painters learned about oil painting and how Northern painters learned about linear perspective. Antonello, along with Giovanni Bellini, was one of the first Italian painters to use oil paint like his Netherlandish contemporaries. And 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. The composition of a
Lamentationthumb|Lamentation by [[Giotto di Bondone]] in the [[Scrovegni Chapel]]The Lamentation of Christ is a very common subject in Christian art from the High Middle Ages to the Baroque. After Jesus was crucified, his body was removed from the cross and his friends and family mourned over his body...
now at the
Metropolitan Museum of ArtThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, known colloquially as The Met, is an art museum located on the eastern edge of Central Park, along what is known as Museum Mile in New York City, USA. It has a permanent collection containing more than two million works of art, divided into nineteen curatorial...
so closely inspired a marble relief by
Antonello GaginiAntonello Gagini was an Italian sculptor of the Renaissance, mainly active in Sicily and Calabria.Antonello was a member of a family of sculptors and artisans, originally from Northern Italy, but active throughout Italy, including Genoa, Florence, and Rome. The family includes his father, Domenico...
in the cathedral at
PalermoPalermo is a historic city in Southern Italy, the capital of the autonomous region Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its rich history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
that it has been suggested that the picture may have been painted for an Italian client.
A late work, the reserved
Portrait of a Young GirlPortrait of a young girl is a painting by the Dutch artist Petrus Christus. The painting marks a stylistic shift in the development of Netherlandish portraiture; the sitter is no longer set against a neutral background, instead she is placed in a realistic physical setting....
belongs among the masterworks of Flemish painting, 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 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.
Christus died in Bruges in 1475 or 1476.
Hans MemlingHans Memling was a German-born Early Netherlandish painter.- Life and works :...
succeeded him as the next great painter in Bruges.
Signed and dated works
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
Portrait of a CarthusianPortrait of a Carthusian is a painting in oils on oak panel by the Early Netherlandish painter Petrus Christus in 1446. Portrait of a Carthusian is part of the Jules Bache Collection housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, USA...
(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 (Gemaldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 1452), and the
Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints Jerome and Francis (Stadelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt-am-Main, 1457?--the digits are not clear). In addition, a pair of panels in the Groeningemuseum in Bruges (showing the Annunciation and Nativity) bears a date of 1452, but its authenticity is suspect.
Other works
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Virgin and Child with St. Barbara and Jan de Vos (the "Exeter Madonna")
St. John the Baptist and
St. Catherine (formerly in the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, destroyed during World War II)
Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery (UK)
Christ as the Man of Sorrows with Two Angels
Groeningemuseum, Bruges
St. Elizabeth Presenting Isabella of Portugal
Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels
Lamentation (Pietà)
Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest
Virgin and Child Standing in an Archway
Cleveland Museum of Art
St. John the Baptist in a Landscape (attributed)
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
St. Anthony Presenting a Donor
Museum, Dessau (formerly)
Crucifixion (destroyed during World War II)
Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum, Hannover
Portrait of a Kneeling Canon (fragment)
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
Holy Family in a Domestic Interior
National Gallery, London
Portrait of a Young Man
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Portrait of a Man
Museo del Prado, Madrid
Virgin and Child Enthroned on a Porch
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Virgin of the Dry Tree
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Lamentation (Pietà)
Portrait of a CarthusianPortrait of a Carthusian is a painting in oils on oak panel by the Early Netherlandish painter Petrus Christus in 1446. Portrait of a Carthusian is part of the Jules Bache Collection housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, USA...
Head of Christ (on parchment)
"Friedsam Annunciation" (attributed; once considered to be by Hubert van Eyck)
Musée du Louvre, Paris
Lamentation (Pietà)
Private Collection
Nativity
Timken Museum of Art, San Diego
Death of the Virgin
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Nativity
Portrait of a Male Donor and
Portrait of a Female Donor (wings of a triptych)
Further reading
External links