Petrus Christus

Cristus, Petrus

Netherlandish, active 1444 - 1475/1476

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Flemish painter (c.1410-1475)

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A pale-skinned man with close-cropped, dark hair kneels near two steps leading from our interior space to a distant landscape in this vertical painting. He faces our right, almost in profile, and his dark hairline sits high on his forehead. He looks off to our right with hazel eyes over a long nose and a pale mouth. His voluminous black robe is trimmed with brown fur, and a red scarf drapes over his near shoulder. Two wooden clogs with black straps lie nearby, to our left. The floor under him is checkered in tan and ginger brown. Just beyond him are two brick-red steps flanked by a gray doorway to our right and a wall to our left. A rectangular shield, curved like a piece of paper curling forward, hangs from a strap on the wall to our left. The top half of the shield is scarlet red, and the bottom has gold, leafy designs against a caramel-brown background. The steps lead to an open courtyard. A three-story, brick building rises on the left side with an open wooden door at the ground level and two rows of windows above. Beyond a section of a crenellated brick wall is a hilly landscape studded with trees. The sky above fades from pale blue along the top edge of the painting to nearly white along the horizon.
Petrus Christus, Portrait of a Male Donor, c. 1455, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.10

Portrait of a Male Donor

Petrus Christus · c. 1455 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1961.9.10

A pale-skinned woman wearing a voluminous, garnet-red, long-sleeved dress kneels at a low lectern in a dark gray room, in front of a window opening onto a grassy landscape in this vertical painting. The woman’s body is angled to our left, and she looks off in that direction. She has a high forehead, thin, arched brows, light brown eyes, a round jawline, and her pale lips are closed. A cone-shaped, gold headdress covers her hair. On the headdress, pearls mark the intersections of a grid made by lines of white dots, and there is a red flower in the center of each square. A gauzy, translucent veil covers her forehead to her brows and hangs off the back of the headdress. Another sheer cloth covers the woman’s chest down to the neckline of her dress, which is edged with gray fur. A gold-colored belt gathers the full skirt, which pools on the ground around and behind her. Gray cuffs cover the backs of her hands to her fingers, which touch in prayer in front of her waist. She wears a gold ring on the ring finger we can see. The gray lectern at which she kneels is cut off by the left side of the painting. Pages flutter across an open book laid on the angled top of the lectern. The floor beneath is a checkerboard of veined, muted, pale pink and ivory-white tiles. A print showing a crowned woman holding two more crowns is affixed to the gray wall with red dots, presumably wax. In the print, the woman’s robe has been colored pale pink, and she stands on bronze-colored grass. Words printed in red and black letters beneath the woman are partially legible, and include “O s a elisab. O.” Above the print hangs a shield-like object that curls away from the wall in a shallow C shape. The shield is rectangular and made up of four vertical, fluted sections. Two to the left are bright red and the two to the right are white. In the top third of the shield, a stylized black bird extends its wings against a copper-red background. The shield hangs from a gray cord on a substantial iron nail. Behind the kneeling woman, a window opening is bisected by an pair of columns. The view beyond shows grassy hills rolling back to spindly trees, a body of water reflecting the pale, nearly white sky, and distant trees and mountains, blue along the horizon. Tiny in the sky, seven birds, presumably geese, fly in a lopsided V near the top left corner of the opening.
Petrus Christus, Portrait of a Female Donor, c. 1455, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.11

Portrait of a Female Donor

Petrus Christus · c. 1455 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1961.9.11

A man, woman, and four winged angels gather and kneel around a nude infant lying on the ground under a stone arched opening set in front of a landscape in this vertical painting. All of the people have pale white or lightly tanned skin. To our left, the woman wears gold-edged, royal-blue robes and has long, curly brown hair. The baby lies on the hem of her robe, his body facing her. An older, balding and bearded man kneels to the right, leaning on a walking stick. He wears a red garment under a green robe, and he holds a hat in his hands as he gazes at the baby. About a third the size of the man and woman, two of the angels kneel between the man and woman and another pair kneel to our left of the woman, seeming close to us. The angels wear colorful gold, pink, red, or yellow robes and all have long wavy blond hair. Their hands touch in prayer and all look down toward the baby. The people are sheltered in front of a crumbling stone wall under a wooden structure. To our left, a cow and donkey are penned in a stable. Two pairs of men stand near or lean on the other side of the rock wall that encloses the scene. A landscape with green rolling hills and a distant town with towers and buildings fills the background beneath a clear blue sky. A triangular structure made of wood beams is framed within the carved archway, which seems to separate us from the space of the painting. The face of the arch looks like it is carved with a nude man atop a column to the left and a similar woman to the right, and with miniature scenes stacked on tiny platforms curving upward to the apex of the arch.
Petrus Christus, The Nativity, c. 1450, oil on panel, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.40

The Nativity

Petrus Christus · c. 1450 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1937.1.40

Bibliography

1926

  • Pächt, Otto. "Die Datierung der Brüsseler Beweinung des Petrus Christus." Belvedere 9/10 (1926): 155-166.

1953

  • Panofsky, ENP 1953.

1972

  • Upton, Joel M. "Petrus Christus." Ph.D. diss., Bryn Mawr College, 1972.

1974

  • Schabacker, Peter H. Petrus Christus. Utrecht, 1974.

1986

  • Hand, John Oliver and Martha Wolff. Early Netherlandish Painting. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1986: 41.

1994

  • Ainsworth, Maryan W., with contributions by Maximiliaan Martens. Petrus Christus: Renaissance Master of Bruges. Exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1994: 19, 209.

1998

  • Campbell, Lorne. National Gallery Catalogues: The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Schools. London, 1998: 104.