Petrus Christus

Background

Petrus Christus was born about 1410 in Baarle-hertog, Antwerpen, Belgium.

Education

Petrus Christus' early training probably took place in the workshop of Jan van Eyck in Bruges, and Christus is his only known follower.

Career

Despite the fact that the earliest work by Christus dates from about 1441, when he appears to have completed the Rothschild Madonna, a painting begun by Jan van Eyck, Petrus Christus was first mentioned in 1444, when he became a free master in Bruges and was granted citizenship in the town.

About 1445 Christus was also exposed to the influence of the great painter from Brussels, Rogier van der Weyden. The Nativity in Washington from this period shows an awareness of Rogier's fluid compositions and the sharpened emotional content of his works, while retaining Van Eyck's strong sense of form. At the same time the advanced landscape background transcends the work of either master in clarity and organization. Further pictorial innovations can be seen in the St. Eligius, which Christus signed and dated in 1449. Despite its muted religious overtones, this panel is rightly considered the first genre painting in northern art. In the Lamentation in Brussels, Christus set for himself the additional problem of integrating a figural composition derived from Rogier with his own subtle interests in lighting and the ordering of space.

Among his other known paintings are "Portrait of Edward Grimston" (1446), "A Carthusian" (1446), "The Interior of a Goldsmith's Shop" (1448), "St. Eligius" (1449), "Virgin and Child" (1449), and "Madonna with Saints" (1457).

With the possible exception of a visit to Milan in 1457, he remained active in Bruges until his death. Petrus Christus died between 2 September 1475 and 13 March 1476. He is buried in the Church of Our Lady.

Achievements

• Petrus Christus was the successor of Jan van Eyck as the next great painter in Bruges. He is best known for the 1446 Portrait of a Carthusian and circa 1470 Berlin Portrait of a Young Girl, both are highly innovative in presentation of the figure against detailed, rather than flat, backgrounds.
  
  Christus was an anonymous figure for centuries, his importance not established until the work of modern art historians like Gustav Waagen and Johann David Passavant.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Isabella Of Portugal With St. Elizabeth

  • Madonna with the Child

  • The Lamentation

  • Nativity

  • Portrait of a man

  • St. Eligius as a goldsmith showing a ring to the engaged couple

  • Kneeling male donor

  • Annunciation and Nativity

  • Madonna and Child

  • The Annunciation

  • The Death of the Virgin

  • The Virgin and Child in a gothic interior

  • Kneeling female donor

  • The Man of Sorrows

  • Edward Grimston

  • Portrait of a Male and Female Donor

  • The Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints Jerome and Francis

  • The Last Judgement

  • Portrait of a Man with a Falcon

  • Portrait of a Young Girl

  • The Lamentation over the Dead Christ

  • Potrait of a Carthusian

  • Our Lady of the Dry Tree

  • Nativity

  • Madonna

  • The Lamentation

  • Head of Christ

Membership

Christus and his wife became members of the prestigious Confraternity of Our Blessed Lady of the Dry Tree in 1462-1463.

• Confraternity of Our Blessed Lady of the Dry Tree

  1462

Connections

Petrus Christus was married to a certain Gaudicine.

Spouse:

Gaudicine

teacher:

Jan van Eyck

References

• Petrus Christus: Renaissance Master of Bruges
• Petrus Christus
• Petrus Christus: His Place in Fifteenth-Century Flemish Painting