Madonna and Child Painting by Petrus Christus

Petrus Christus was an Early Netherlandish painter who lived from 1410–1420 and worked in Bruges from 1444. After Jan van Eyck died, he and Hans Memling were the most important painters in Bruges. He was influenced by van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden. He is known for his innovations with linear perspective and a careful style that seems to come from miniatures and manuscript illumination. Today, about 30 of his works are sure to be his. Portrait of a Carthusian (from 1446) and Portrait of a Young Girl (from around 1470) are the best known. Both are very innovative in the way they show the figure against a detailed background instead of a flat one.
Christus was the most famous painter in Bruges between 1441, when Jan van Eyck died, and 1460, when Hans Memling moved there. At the time, Bruges was the most important place for painting in the Netherlands.
Christus was a faceless figure for hundreds of years, and it wasn't until the work of modern art historians that we learned how important he was. In his Renaissance biographies of painters, Giorgio Vasari barely talks about him, and records from around the same time just list him among many others. In the early to mid-19th century, Gustav Waagen (who called him "Pierre Christophsen" in French) and Johann David Passavant were important in finding out about Christus's life and putting his name on works.

• Nationality: BELGIUM
• Date of birth : unknown date
• Artistic domains: Represented by a Gallery,
• Groups: Contemporary Belgian Artists Artists presented by a gallery