The Early Renaissance


   

Petrus Christus
 

(b Baerle-Duc [now Baarle-Hertog], c. 1410; d Bruges, 1475–6).

South Netherlandish painter. His known artistic career began in Bruges on 6 July 1444 when, as the Poorterboek (‘citizens’ register’) for that day reveals, ‘he purchased his citizenship ... in order to be a painter’. Town records show that he and his wife became members of the Confraternity of the Dry Tree c. 1462; that in 1463 he and another painter, Pieter Nachtegale, were paid for the construction of a Tree of Jesse (destr.) and for the cost of assistants employed on the day of the religious procession in which it was used; and that on 19 March 1472 he served as a representative of the painters’ guild in a dispute with another painter, Jehan de Hervy the elder ( fl 1472–1507). These and a few other scattered references comprise the existing documentation for Christus’s life and work.

 

Annunciation
1452
Wood, 85,5 x 54,8 cm
Groeninge Museum, Bruges
 

Nativity
1452
Wood, 85,5 x 54,8 cm
Groeninge Museum, Bruges