Career
While many surviving paintings have been attributed, there is very little known of him from records, and he tended not to sign his work. He is believed to be responsible for mainly religious art, but also painted portraits on commission. He sometime painted from classical sources, often setting the figures in modern-dress, or a contemporary domestic setting.
In his lifetime he was successful.
He had a large workshop, his work was sold internationally and he was especially popular in Spain. In particular his many variations of the Magdalen and Sibilla Persica were further copied and became popular with contemporary buyers.
Many have retained their relative value and held in the National, London and command high prices at Sotheby"son Typical of the itinerant manner of many painters of the time, he moved to Bruges c.
1515 and served his apprenticeship with the Early Netherlandish painter Gerard David.
He later became a naturalized citizen of Bruges. He eventually became a dean and then and governor of the guild. He later remarried and had a daughter Anna.
He is believed to have had at least two other daughters from extra-marital affairs
Benson came into dispute with Gerard around 1519, over a number of paintings and drawings Benson had created -including a book of studies for heads and nudes as well as various patternsin the older master"s workshop without his assistance. David refused to return the material, and after Benson pursued him legally, served time in prison for his appropriation.
He served as head of the Guild of Saint Luke from 1537 to 1539 and 1543 to 1544. Much of his work was at one time attributed to a Spanish artist known only as the Master of Segovia.
lieutenant is now believed they were the same person.
Perhaps under the influence of Rogier van der Weyden"s 15th-century The Magdalen Reading, Benson was one of the first artists to popularise images of women reading. lieutenant became a motif for him, and he painted the scene many times in his images of Mary Magdalen and the Sybil Persica, whom he treated as almost interchangeable.