Pieter Pourbus

Very little is known of his childhood and youth while living in Gouda; contemporary artists such as Karel Van Mander only make a brief mention of his origins in the city.

Early years in Gouda His first biography was written by contemporary artist biographer Karel van Mander in his renowned Schilder-boeck (Book of Painters) of 1604, starting: "(...) I would not like to conceal any of the most special.

[8][9] Shortly after he registered with the Bruges Guild of Saint Luke, Pieter Pourbus married Anna, the youngest daughter of painter Lancelot Blondeel.

Pourbus became a member of the Crossbowmen's Guild of St George and often visited the rhetorician meetings organised by the Chamber of the Holy Spirit.

An example of this is the painting The Seven Joys of the Virgin (c.1546),[12][13] which today hangs in the Tournai Cathedral[12] Pourbus' smaller work The Last Supper[14] indicates that his father-in-law also introduced him to the 'Rederijker' or rhetorician circles of amateur poets and reciting artists.

The idea that this painting was inspired to Pourbus by the rhetoricians plays was confirmed when the smaller Last Supper from 1548 surfaced in 2000 and could be linked by Samuel Mareel to the Chamber of the Holy Spirit.

His triptych The Baptism of Christ, which dates back to 1549 and now hangs in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, is one of the most famous examples of his early work.

During this period he received many notable commissions from the Brugse Vrije, such as the decorations for the Joyous Entry of Charles V and Philip II in 1549 ('Blijde intocht van Karel V en prins Filips in 1549'), a drawing for a new banquet hall,[17] and the Last Judgment (Laatste Oordeel).

[19] Pourbus gradually became a popular portrait painter among the upper class, such as wine merchant Jan van Eyewerve and his wife Jacquemyne Buuck.

In addition, Pourbus began to expressly date and sign his works in this period, indicative of the rise in his reputation and his growing artistic independence.

As an elder, he participated in quality checks on fellow guild members; for instance, he visited Simon Puseel in response to the latter's poor performance in gilding the dome of the Jerusalem Chapel in Bruges.

He started to use a new methodology based on triangulation, according to the principles developed by his contemporary Gemma Frisius,[21] which resulted in more accurate and very modern maps.

It is not known exactly how Pourbus obtained this knowledge, but it is known that his father-in-law, Blondeel, was also a cartographer, and that his 1549 map of the canal between Damme and Sluis indicates that he was probably already using this new technique at that time, constituting a great innovative movement in the 1540s in Bruges.

Pourbus followed up on his Last Judgment and the Annunciation with the smaller Crucifixion in 1557.However, the Van Belle triptych (1556) is one of the most famous of his religious works and is often considered by art historians to be an important milestone in his career.

An original design drawing of the painting contains handwritten comments, in which the artist agrees to portray the Madonna not with clenched hands but in a more resigned posture: with the arms pressed crosswise over one another.

Pourbus began to gain a reputation in Bruges for his artwork and innovation; the Italian Ludovico Guicciardini names him as one of the most important painters of his time in his Descrittione di tutti i Paesi Bassi or Description of all the Low Countries in 1567.

[31] In 1567, Pourbus produced a portrait of Knight François van der Straten, a leading authority in the Liberty of Bruges and an academically trained lawyer.

He drew inspiration from an allegorical print by Cornelis Theunisz from 1537 in which a child, an hourglass, and a skull reflect the theme of the transience of life in a similar matter to the portrait.

The text that he points out on the note beneath his hand reads "Cognitio Dei et natvrae rationalis", which can be translated as "Knowledge of God and reasonable nature".

In the same year, he also painted the portrait of Pieter de Corte, the newly appointed bishop of the recently created bishopric of Bruges.

De Corte was appointed by King Philip II of Spain; the prestige of such a commission indicates the high status that Pourbus had accrued by this time.

His Portrait of Juan Lopez Gallo and His Three Sons (1568) reflects both Pourbus' artistic style and the strength of his ties to the Spanish upper class.

Sometimes, he left the actual execution of paintings for his more distant clients to atelier staff, as shown in his Mount at Calvary in the Cathedral of San Pedro of Soria.

For example, in autumn of 1571, he created a design for an altarpiece for the Church of Our Lady in Damme, but a different, cheaper painter, Jacob van den Coornhuuse, was commissioned to do the work instead.

(For more information on the expansion of Protestants at the time, read on the Dutch Revolt and the Pacification of Ghent) There was little resistance to the invasion, and the city became a Calvinist republic.

His epitaph for the Catholic Zeghere van Male, a rich merchant also known for a famous song book, probably dates back to 1578, before the invasion of Protestants from Ghent.

In contrast, he also created the designs for the deconsecrated Church of St. Christopher in autumn of that same year to be turned into a market hall, because it was no longer permitted to be used for worship.

For example, Pourbus' Joyous Entry of Charles V and Prince Philip II, which dates from 1549, is a prime description of Renaissance architecture in Northern Europe.

[40][41] Ludovico Guicciardini names him as one of the most important painters of his time in his Decrittione di tutti i Paesi Bassi or Description of all the Low Countries in 1567.

[42] There are no portraits of Pieter Pourbus, but, according to Paul Huvenne,[43] he may have included a self-portrait on the left altar wing of the "Tryptych of the Holy Sacrament fraternity" in the St Saviour's Cathedral, Bruges.