Petrus Christus
Encyclopedia
Petrus Christus was an Early Netherlandish painter active in Bruges
from 1444.
, near Antwerp
and Breda
. Long considered a student of and successor to Jan van Eyck
, 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 Bouts
, Robert Campin
and Rogier van der Weyden.
It is still unknown whether Christus visited Italy, and brought style and technical accomplishments of the greatest Northern European painters directly to Antonello da Messina
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 Lamentation
, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
, seems so closely inspired a marble relief by Antonello Gagini
in the cathedral at Palermo
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 Girl 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 Memling
succeeded him as the next great painter in Bruges.
(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.
Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery (UK)
Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
Groeningemuseum, Bruges
Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels
Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest
Cleveland Museum of Art
Statens Museum for Kunst
, Copenhagen
Museum, Dessau (formerly)
Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum, Hannover
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
, Kansas City, Missouri
National Gallery
, London
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Museo del Prado
, Madrid
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
, Madrid
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Musée du Louvre, Paris
Private Collection
Timken Museum of Art
, San Diego
National Gallery of Art
, Washington, DC
Bruges
Bruges 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.
Life
Christus was born in BaarleBaarle
Baarle is a small town on the border between the Netherlands and Belgium. It is divided between the municipalities of*Baarle-Hertog *Baarle-Nassau A second Baarle is a parish in Drongen, Ghent, East Flanders, Flanders, Belgium....
, near Antwerp
Antwerp (province)
Antwerp 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...
and Breda
Breda
Breda is a municipality and a city in the southern part of the Netherlands. The name Breda derived from brede Aa and refers to the confluence of the rivers Mark and Aa. As a fortified city, the city was of strategic military and political significance...
. Long considered a student of and successor to Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck
Jan van 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 Bouts
Dirk Bouts
Dieric Bouts 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 Campin
Robert Campin
Robert Campin , now usually identified as 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 Italy, and brought style and technical accomplishments of the greatest Northern European painters directly to Antonello da Messina
Antonello da Messina
Antonello da Messina, properly Antonello di Giovanni di Antonio was an Italian painter from Messina, Sicily, 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 Lamentation
Lamentation of Christ
350px|thumb|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 Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, seems so closely inspired a marble relief by Antonello Gagini
Antonello Gagini
Antonello 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 Palermo
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its 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 Girl 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 Memling
Hans Memling
Hans Memling was a German-born Early Netherlandish painter.-Life and works:Born in Seligenstadt, near Frankfurt in the Middle Rhein region, it is believed that Memling served his apprenticeship at Mainz or Cologne, and later worked in the Netherlands under Rogier van der Weyden...
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
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...
(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
Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten
The Royal Museum of Fine Arts is a museum in Antwerp, Belgium, founded in 1810, houses a collection of paintings, sculptures and drawings from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries...
, 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
Groeningemuseum
The Groeningemuseum is a municipal museum of Bruges, Belgium.It houses a comprehensive survey of six centuries of Flemish and Belgian painting, from Jan van Eyck to Marcel Broodthaers...
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
Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
- A Goldsmith in His Shop, Possibly St. Eligius
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
Cleveland Museum of Art
The Cleveland Museum of Art is an art museum situated in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on Cleveland's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian art, the museum houses a diverse permanent collection of more than 43,000...
- St. John the Baptist in a Landscape (attributed)
Statens Museum for Kunst
Statens Museum for Kunst
Statens Museum for Kunst is the Danish national gallery located in Copenhagen....
, 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
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art museum in Kansas City, Missouri, known for its neoclassical architecture and extensive collection of Asian art....
, Kansas City, Missouri
- Holy Family in a Domestic Interior
National Gallery
National gallery
The National Gallery is an art gallery on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom.National Gallery may also refer to:*Armenia: National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan*Australia:**National Gallery of Australia, Canberra...
, London
- Portrait of a Young Man
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....
- Portrait of a Man
Museo del Prado
Museo del Prado
The Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
, Madrid
- Virgin and Child Enthroned on a Porch
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, or in Spanish Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, is an art museum near the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain. It is known as a part of the "Golden Triangle of Art", which also includes the Prado and the Reina Sofia galleries...
, Madrid
- Virgin of the Dry Tree
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
- Lamentation (Pietà)
- Portrait of a CarthusianPortrait of a CarthusianPortrait 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...
- 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
Timken Museum of Art
The Timken Museum of Art is a fine art museum located in Balboa Park in San Diego, California, close to the San Diego Museum of Art.-History:...
, San Diego
- Death of the Virgin
National Gallery of Art
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...
, Washington, DC
- Nativity
- Portrait of a Male Donor and Portrait of a Female Donor (wings of a triptych)
Further reading
- Schabacker, Peter H. Petrus Christus. Utrecht, 1974.
- Upton, Joel M. Petrus Christus: His Place in Fifteenth-Century Flemish Painting. University Park and London: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990. ISBN 0-271-00672-2
- Ainsworth, Maryan W. Petrus Christus: Renaissance Master of Bruges. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994. ISBN 0-300-08651-2
- Ainsworth, Maryan W., ed. Petrus Christus in Renaissance Bruges: An Interdisciplinary Approach. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995. ISBN 0-87099-751-3
- 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.