He was active in his native city Amsterdam but also worked for a long period in Antwerp, then the centre of artistic life in the Netherlands.

Unlike these, in Aertsen's works the genre material dominates the front of the image, with the history scene, normally religious, easy to overlook in the background.

[7] In the Uppsala painting the zones behind the butcher's stall show (from left) a view through a window of a church, the Holy Family distributing alms on their journey, a worker in the mid-ground, with a merry company eating mussels and oysters (believed to promote lust) in a back room behind.

[9] An article by Zoran Kwak argues that a painting by his son Pieter Pietersz the Elder (1540–1603), normally called Market Scene with the Journey to Emmaus, which features prominently a half-naked figure who is clearly a cook (with Jesus and his companions as smaller figures behind him), in fact represents a self-portrait in a partly comic spirit, depicted as Peiraikos.

Unlike Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Aertsen's genre figures (especially the women) were mostly depicted idealized with considerable dignity and no effort at comedy, using poses that ultimately derived from classical art.

[11] Notable pupils who trained in his workshop included Stradanus and Aertsen's nephews, Joachim Beuckelaer and Huybrecht Beuckeleer.

He married Kathelijne Beuckelaar, the daughter and sister of an Antwerp painter and aunt of Joachim Beuckelaer and Huybrecht Beuckeleer.