Petrus Christus

Petrus Christus was the leading painter in Bruges between Jan van Eyck and Hans Memling. His pictures have the precise detail of Van Eyck, but he was more interested in space, and he was among the first in the North to use linear perspective with a single vanishing point.

He was born in Baarle, between Antwerp and Breda, around 1410 and bought citizenship of Bruges in 1444. He may have taken over Van Eyck’s workshop after 1441, though scholars now see him as an independent painter who also learned from Robert Campin and Rogier van der Weyden. Many of his clients were Italians living in Bruges. About thirty works are securely his. His Portrait of a Carthusian is in the Metropolitan Museum, his Portrait of a Young Girl is in Berlin, and Our Lady of the Dry Tree is in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. He died around 1475.

In Portrait of a Carthusian, look for the painted fly on the frame, a trick to show off his skill.