Michiel Coxie
This also reflected his contemporaries' appreciation that his study of classical Antiquity and the art of Renaissance masters like Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci during his 10-year residence in Italy had left an important mark on his style.
His innovative style and bold compositions were in the centuries after his death an inspiration to Flemish artists including Peter Paul Rubens.
Most known facts and statements of later biographers point to a training in the workshop of the Brussels master Bernard van Orley.
[6] The earliest documents attesting to Michiel Coxie's life and activities date to the period of his residence in Rome.
He recounts that Coxie was commissioned by Cardinal Willem van Enckevoirt to paint frescoes in the Santa Maria dell'Anima.
Not long after completing the frescoes in 1534 he was admitted to the Compagnia di San Luca, Rome's guild of painters and miniaturists.
[6] Lombard and Floris were Romanists, i.e. artists from the Low Countries who had travelled to Rome where they had assimilated the new Renaissance currents which they translated upon their return home into a break with the Netherlandish painting traditions.
[6] The first children of Coxie, a son Raphael and a daughter Anna, may have been born in Liège although other sources place their births in Mechelen.
With this work Coxie offered the general public in Flanders its first confrontation with the monumental, grand style of the High Renaissance.
It is believed that around this time he succeeded van Orley as the court painter to Mary of Hungary, sister of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and the governor of the Netherlands.
[6] In 1543 Coxie was registered as a poorter (citizen) of the city of Brussels and as a member of the local Guild of Saint Luke.
This is not surprising because at that time Brussels was the world center for the production of tapestries, then an important economic factor in the entire Netherlands.
Coxie also gained commissions from many other prominent persons such as the Morillon family for whom he painted the Triptych with the triumph of Christ (M – Museum Leuven).
Guy Morillon, originally from Burgundy, was one of the most prominent notables of Leuven and a secretary to king Charles V. Coxie further designed the decorations for the joyous entry of then crown prince Philip II in Brussels in 1549 and a series of portraits of the Habsburg rulers.
When in 1555 king Charles V stepped down from the throne in favor of his son Philip II, the new ruler maintained the royal support for Coxie.
Philip tasked Coxie with making a true-to-life copy of the Ghent Altarpiece by the van Eyck brothers.
He continued to live in this city and became a member of the local chamber of rhetoric de Peoene and the guild of musketeers.
Philip II of Spain commissioned two copies of Van der Weyden's Descent from the Cross from Coxie.
[4] This attitude earned him the strong support of the king as well as the protection of the Duke of Alba, governor of the Habsburg Netherlands between 1567 and 1573.
After the king's chancellor de Granvelle, who was then living in Rome, interceded personally with the Pope the sentence was cut in half.
Even the Duke of Alva bestowed favors on him and his family when he granted Michiel and his son Raphael dispensation from the compulsory billeting of Spanish soldiers at their homes.
In October 1572 Spanish troops plundered Mechelen for three days after retaking the city from an army under the command of William the Silent, the leader of the Dutch Revolt.
His house was plundered and some painters from Antwerp were able to buy back some tapestry designs which Spanish soldiers had looted from his home.
However, Mechelen had become a cultural wasteland while Antwerp offered attractive opportunities as many of the altarpieces which had been destroyed needed to be replaced and its leading history painters Frans Floris and Willem Key had just died.
[14] Coxie was a prolific artist, who painted altarpieces and portraits and produced designs for stained-glass windows, tapestries and prints.
He also read classical literature and philosophy and was aware of the intellectual discussions on the reception of Antique art in Italy.
The panel Plato's Cave which he likely painted during his stay in Rome is an attempt by Coxie to express these visual and philosophical influences.
For instance, the Roman Antique statue of Falling Galatian (Venice National Archaeological Museum) was the model for the tormented man in the centre.
[16] The first important work he realised upon his return to Flanders after his stay in Italy shows all the key characteristics of his style and the contribution he made to Flemish painting.
