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Petrus Christus (XPI)

Chronology

ca. 1410(?): Birth, supposedly in one of the two villages called Baerle, perhaps the one near Breda--or else the one near Tilburg, on the modern Dutch/Belgian border.

1444: Entry in the Poorterboek of the city of Bruges: "Pieter Xps, son of Pieter, born in Baerle, purchased his citizenship on the sixth of July...in order to be a painter."

NOTE: This casts doubt on the traditional idea that Christus studied with Jan van Eyck, who had died in 1441. PC's purchase of citizenship means that he didn't want to earn it by the normal means of living in town for a year and a day.

If he was never van Eyck's assistant, then doubt is also cast on the traditional idea that it was Christus whom Margaret van Eyck hired to run her late husband's workshop, and who would then have finished any panels left incomplete when Van E. died. (e.g., the Detroit St. Jerome, or the Madonna and Sts. in the Frick Collection, New York.)

1454: Commissoned by the Count of Etampes to make three copies of a miraculous image of the Madonna (in Cambrai)

1457: A "Piero of Bruges" visits the Sforza court in Milan. Is this our PC? Maybe.

1462: PC and his wife are received into the (very exclusive, for rich people only) Confraternity of the Dry Tree (Bruges). Paints a Madonna for them (now in the Thyssen collection, Madrid)

1463: Paints (with Pieter de Nachtegale) a Tree of Jesse, for the Holy Blood procession.

1472/3: PC dies in Bruges, leaving one son, Sebastian, born out of wedlock. Sebastian was a miniaturist, and fathered a son, Petrus Christus II, who also became a painter.

For more on Christus see:

  • Vos (text)
  • Joel Upton, Petrus Christus (on Reserve)
  • Panofsky, ENP (on Reserve)
  • See also the catalogue of the Christus exhibition (NY, Met), 1994, by Ainsworth (on Reserve)