Special thanks to the Microsoft Corporation for permission to use following biographical information from Microsoft® Encarta '97:
Petrus Christus was a leading master of early Netherlandish painting.
Known to have been in Bruges before 1440, Christus was probably apprenticed
to Jan van Eyck. He completed at least two paintings left unfinished by van Eyck on
the latter's death in 1441 (St. Jerome, Detroit Institute of Arts;
Rothschild Madonna, Frick Collection, New York City).
Christus's independent paintings, exemplified by Nativity (1445;
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), reflect a
synthesis of the spatial and volumetric advances of van Eyck and the
emotionalism of Rogier van der Weyden. He furthered
van Eyck's interest in visual literalism by his experiments with linear
perspective, as in Sir Edward Grymestone (1446;
National Gallery, London).
