He hailed from the Duchy of Brabant, worked in Antwerp and Brussels, and was appointed court painter to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

However, as Coecke van Aelst clearly was familiar with Raphael's fresco of the Triumph of Galatea located in the Villa Farnesina in Rome, it seems likely he did in fact travel to Italy.

[8] Around this time Coecke van Aelst received major commissions for the design of stained-glass windows including for the Antwerp Cathedral.

[1][2] The prominent painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder married Coecke van Aelst's daughter Maria (called 'Mayken').

[4] His students included leading painters such as Gillis van Coninxloo, Willem Key, Hans Vredeman de Vries, Michiel Coxcie, and possibly Pieter Brueghel the Elder.

[14] Pieter Coecke van Aelst was a versatile artist and a master designer who devised projects across a wide range of different media, including panel paintings, sculptures, prints, tapestries, stained glass and goldsmith's work.

From the later 1520s his works start to reveal the Italian influence, as is noticeable in his figures, which gain in monumentality, and the greater movement and drama in his compositions.

Romano possessed a large collection of Raphael's drawings and Coecke must have availed himself of the opportunity to study these in detail during his visit.

The version dated 1527 in the collection of the Duke and Duchess of Rutland, Belvoir Castle, Grantham, England is believed to be the original copy from which all the other ones were derived.

[3] Van Aelst's painting of the subject was freely inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper (1498, Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan) and Marcantonio Raimondi's engraving of about 1515–1516 based on a lost drawing by Raphael.

Van Aelst likely produced the original drawing for the Last Supper, which was subsequently copied onto a panel by means of intermediary cartoons.

Through the window it is possible to discern a scene depicting the Entry in Jerusalem of Jesus Christ, the principal event preceding the Last Supper according to Christian literature.

The whole iconography accentuates the Christian occupation with original sin and the belief that mankind's salvation solely relies on Christ's sacrifice.

[20] In the version of the subject in the Walters Museum Coecke van Aelst suggests the Oriental setting by the view visible through the window which shows a landscape with camels.

Further reminders of the motifs of the passage of time and the imminence of death are the image of the Last Judgment visible in the saint's Bible, the candle and the hourglass.

This version reprises iconographic elements, which stress Christian beliefs regarding the transience of human life and the importance of the sacrifice of Christ for people to find salvation at the time of the so-called Last Judgement.

His cartoon for the Martyrdom of St. Peter (Brussels Town Hall) is in grisaille with touches of green and red while the names of the other colors, such as gold or blue, are written in.

[23] The patrons for the tapestries included Emperor Charles V, Francis I of France, Henry VIII of England and Cosimo de' Medici.

Mary of Hungary, the Governor General of the Netherlands, appealed to Coecke to assist Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen with the design of the Conquest of Tunis tapestry series.

[24] Vermeyen had reportedly accompanied Charles V on the military expedition to Tunis and had made sketches of the people, events and landscapes that he observed during the campaign.

The Story of the Creation was designed around 1548 and acquired by Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici and his spouse Eleanor of Toledo.

[27] It is believed that the appreciation for these prints at the Spanish court led to Coecke van Aelst's appointment as court painter to Charles V.[2] Pieter Coecke van Aelst was a gifted linguist and is noted for his translation of Vitruvius' De architectura into Flemish under the title Die inventie der colommen met haren coronementen ende maten.

Wt Vitruuio ende andere diuersche auctoren optcorste vergadert, voor scilders, beeltsniders, steenhouders, &c. En allen die ghenuechte hebben in edificien der antiquen published first in 1539.

[2][27] Coecke van Aelst's translation of Vitruvius was hailed by the humanist Dominicus Lampsonius as the only Dutch-language book to discuss the building styles of other countries.

Coecke van Aelst's Flemish (Dutch) edition in turn served as the basis for the first English translation of Serlio.

In the Low Countries the relation between architecture and perspective also acquired theoretical backing in Coecke van Aelst's translations.

Coecke's translations of architectural publications had an important impact on the architect and graphic artist Hans Vredeman de Vries who is said to have assiduously copied their designs.