Adriaen of Cronenburgh, Katheryn of Berain

Adriaen van Cronenburg Portrait of a Lady and a Young Girl Holding Three Flowers

Adriaen van Cronenburg (also Cronenburgh, Cronenburch) (

Schagen Schagen () is a city and municipality in the northwestern Netherlands. It is located between Alkmaar and Den Helder, in the region of West Friesland (region), West Friesland and the province of North Holland. It received City rights in the Nethe ...

, –

Bergum Burgum is the largest and administrative town of the municipality of Tytsjerksteradiel, in the Dutch province of Friesland. It had a population of 10,058 inhabitants in January 2017. On 1 January 1989 the official name of the village was change ...

, after 1604) was a Northern

Netherlandish The Low Countries comprise the coastal Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta region in Western Europe, whose definition usually includes the modern countries of Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. Both Belgium and the Netherlands derived their ...

painter. He produced mainly portraits. Cronenburg was active between about 1547 and 1590, working in the provinces of

Friesland Friesland (, ; official fry, Fryslân ), historically and traditionally known as Frisia, is a province of the Netherlands located in the country's northern part. It is situated west of Groningen, northwest of Drenthe and Overijssel, north of ...

and

Groningen Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...

. He also spent some time in

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

, especially in

Leuven Leuven (, ) or Louvain (, , ; german: link=no, Löwen ) is the capital and largest city of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located about east of Brussels. The municipality itself comprises the historic ...

and

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

, where he painted the portrait of

Katheryn of Berain Katheryn of Berain ( cy, Catrin o Ferain) (born 1535 - Latin eulogy; died aged 56 on 27 August 1591), sometimes called ''Mam Cymru'' ("mother of Wales"), was a Welsh noblewoman noted for her four marriages and her extensive network of descendan ...

now in

National Museum Cardiff National Museum Cardiff ( cy, Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Caerdydd) is a museum and art gallery in Cardiff, Wales. The museum is part of the wider network of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales. Entry is kept free by a grant from the Welsh Go ...

. Cronenburg's cousin married into two aristocratic families in succession, and it is likely through this connection that he became secretary of

Tietjerksteradeel Tytsjerksteradiel () is a municipality in the province of Friesland in the Netherlands. It is named after the town of Tytsjerk, whose name is derived from a person named Tiete. Tiete was a daughter of Tryn, after whom the region (Trynwâlden) is n ...

in 1567. Following the

Union of Utrecht The Union of Utrecht ( nl, Unie van Utrecht) was a treaty signed on 23 January 1579 in Utrecht, Netherlands, unifying the northern provinces of the Netherlands, until then under the control of Habsburg Spain. History The Union of Utrecht is r ...

, Cronenburg left Friesland in 1580 due to his refusal to give up Catholicism. He was allowed to return to Friesland in 1592 and settled in

. The last signed works known are from 1587 and 1590. The identity of Adriaen van Cronenburg was established by A. Wassenbergh, formerly the director of the

Fries Museum The Fries Museum (Frisian Museum) is a museum in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. It has won the Global Fine Art Award which is sometimes nicknamed the Museum-Oscar. History (1881-2012) The museum was founded on 13 April 1881 by the "''Provincial Friesch ...

, based on his unusual signature, ''A.a.a.a. van Cronenburg''. Anna van Cronenburg (1552 – ) was a documented relation of Adriaen, the daughter of a doctor whose second husband became mayor of

Leeuwarden Leeuwarden (; fy, Ljouwert, longname=yes /; Town Frisian: ''Liwwadden''; Leeuwarder dialect: ''Leewarden'') is a city and municipality in Friesland, Netherlands, with a population of 123,107 (2019). It is the provincial capital and seat of the ...

in 1579. The issue of the real identity of the artist was raised in an article in 1934 by G. Marlier. Various works by Cronenburg are in the Fries Museum, and a group of four related portraits of women is in the

Prado Museum The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It is widely considered to house one of the world's finest collections of European art, dating from the ...

in Spain. The Prado group are all three-quarter length standing portraits of ladies, two with daughters of perhaps ten years old. One has a skull on a table, like the Cardiff portrait. The four, plus a lost fifth work, were inventoried in the

Spanish royal collection The Spanish royal collection of art was almost entirely built up by the monarchs of the Habsburg family who ruled Spain from 1516 to 1700, and then the Bourbons (1700–1868, with a brief interruption). They included a number of kings with a serio ...

at the old royal palace, the

Royal Alcazar of Madrid Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal, Iowa, a cit ...

, in 1636, and show their subjects in front of the same background of a Renaissance blind arcade with niches and green drapery, and are virtually the same size (about 1.05 x 0.79 cm).Nos. 2073–2076 in the Prado catalogue: ''Museo del Prado, Catálogo de las pinturas'', 1996, pp 90 and 549, Ministerio de Educación y Cultura, Madrid,

References

External links

Paintings by Adriaen van Cronenburg in the Fries Museum
*
Adriaen van Cronenburg
in the

RKD The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: RKD-Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center i ...

Adriaen van Cronenburg
on

artnet Artnet.com is an art market website. It is operated by Artnet Worldwide Corporation, which has headquarters in New York City, in the United States, and is owned by Artnet AG, a German publicly traded company based in Berlin that is listed on t ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cronenburg, Adriaen van Dutch Renaissance painters 1520s births 1600s deaths People from Friesland People from Schagen

References

Further reading

External links