The subject matter of his tapestries was more varied, reflecting the normal range of that medium, from biblical cycles to allegories, battle and hunting scenes.

[citation needed]His branch of the family then moved to the Duchy of Brabant, where his father Valentin van Orley (ca.

The painted wing panels of the sculpted Saluzzo retable are attributed to Valentin van Orley, describing the Life of St. Joseph (ca.

It is sometimes presumed that Bernard van Orley completed his art education in Rome in the school of Raphael, however there are no reliable sources to prove this.

It is therefore much more likely that he was initially taught in the workshop of his father, an obscure painter whose name appears as "master" in the "Liggere" (registers) of the Guild of St. Luke of Antwerp and who had several pupils.

[4] Bernard van Orley received his knowledge of the Renaissance style from engravings and the Raphael Cartoons for tapestries of scenes from the Acts of the Apostles that were present in Brussels between 1516 and 1520; they are now in London.

One of his earliest signed works dates from 1512: the "Triptych of the Carpenters and Masons Corporation of Brussels", also called the Apostle Altar.

Around 1514–1515, he painted The Martyrdom of Saint John the Baptist, part of an altarpiece for the Benedictine abbey church of Marchiennes, likely commissioned by its abbot, Jacques Coëne.

He must have been especially proud of his work as he signed it twice and added his coat of arms as well as his monogram BVO and the motto 'ELX SYNE TYT' ("each his own time").

This triptych was commissioned by Philippe Haneton, first secretary in the Secret Counsel of Charles V. The middle panel depicts a poignant pietà against an archaic golden background, painted in a very personal style with influences of the Flemish Primitives and Albrecht Dürer.

The triptych The Last Judgment (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen), was commissioned by the almoners of the Cathedral of Our Lady, Antwerp in 1525, is one of his best works in its originality and mastery.

The paintings in grisaille on the back were executed by Peter de Kempeneer, who was, at that time, an apprentice in the van Orley's workshop.

The side panels were finished much later by Marcus Gerards the Elder and brought to Bruges by Margaret of Parma, regent of the Netherlands under king Philip II of Spain.

He usually represented saints in a full-length portrait, such as his Mary with Child and John the Baptist (Museo del Prado, Madrid), with a background of an open colonnade, a baldachin or a set of trees.

Bernard van Orley often signed his paintings, especially in his early period before 1521, with the coat of arms of the Seigneurs d'Orley: argent two pallets gules.

Together with Jan Gossaert and Quentin Matsys, Bernard van Orley is regarded as one of the leading innovators of the 16th-century Flemish painting, by adopting the style and manner of the Italian Renaissance.

From the 1520s on, under the influence of the Raphael tapestries woven at Brussels for Pope Leo X, van Orley's tapestries began to increasingly resemble paintings, more in line with the aesthetics of the Renaissance,[13] as can be seen in his Passion series - one set in the Royal Palace of Madrid and the other set dispersed over several museums - and the Lamentation in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Since Dürer had been a guest in the house of van Orley at the time the contracts for these tapestries were signed, it is possible that the two artists may have discussed the design.

In his later years (1521–1530) he made the twelve small cartoons (also called by their French name petits patrons), perhaps with the help of Jan Geethels,[15] for his best-known tapestry series, The Hunts of Maximilian (Louvre, Paris).

[16] With those cartoons he, and also Johannes Stradanus, set an example for their followers by opening up new paths in Italianism with their classic breadth and ease in transforming the rendering of landscapes,[17] successfully integrating it into Netherlandish traditional modes.

The Battle of Pavia is another set of seven tapestries on display in the Museo di Capodimonte (Naples, Italy), while the seven small cartoons are owned by the Louvre, Paris.

In these tapestries, Bernard van Orley created a detailed historical authenticity on a grand scale, with life-size figures within imagined surroundings.

The tapestry Hercules carrying the Heavenly Spheres was commissioned by king John II of Portugal in 1530 and can be seen in the Royal Palace of Madrid.

The windows in the north transept of the St. Michael and Gudula Cathedral in Brussels depict members of the House of Habsburg (Charles V and his wife Isabella of Portugal), Charlemagne and Elisabeth of Hungary, and scenes from the Legend of the Miraculous Host, while the windows in the south transept depict Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia and his wife Maria of Austria, sister of Charles V, kneeling in front of a vertical Trinity with St Louis and the Virgin with Child.

He also designed the stained-glass windows for the St Rumbolds Cathedral, Malines depicting Margaret of Austria, her third husband Philibert II, Duke of Savoy, and Christ entering Jerusalem.