Michiel Coxie the Elder, Michiel Coxcie the Elder or Michiel van Coxcie, Latinised name Coxius (1499 – 3 March 1592), was a Flemish painter of altarpieces and portraits, a draughtsman and a designer of stained-glass windows, tapestries and prints. He worked for patrons in the principal cities of Flanders. He became the court painter to successively Emperor Charles V and King Philip II of Spain.
Highly respected by his contemporaries, Coxie was given the nickname the Flemish Raphael as some of his contemporaries regarded him as being on an equal level as the Italian master. This also reflected his contemporaries' appreciation that his study of classical Antiquity and the art of Renaissance masters like Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci during his 10-year residence in Italy had left an important mark on his style. His innovative style and bold compositions were in the centuries after his death an inspiration to Flemish artists including Peter Paul Rubens. He was thus an important artistic link between the artists of early Netherlandish painting and the Flemish Baroque. Coxie was also a copyist and produced a well-known copy of the Ghent Altarpiece by the van Eyck brothers as well as a Descent from the Cross by Rogier van der Weyden.
No records survive about the early life and training of Michiel Coxie. His year of birth has been determined to be 1499 through deduction from later sources. The place of his birth also remains uncertain. It is generally assumed that he was born in Mechelen as this was the first place he appears to have returned to after his long-term residence in Italy. Some art historians have suggested that his place of birth was in the region around Hasselt, then in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège.
The master or masters from whom he received his artistic training are not documented. Most known facts and statements of later biographers point to a training in the workshop of the Brussels master Bernard van Orley. It is known that during his stay in Rome, Coxie enjoyed the favor of the Flemish Cardinal Willem van Enckevoirt who may have been Bernard van Orley's patron in Rome assuming van Orley really took the trip to Rome as some sources have suggested. It has been speculated that this relationship with the Cardinal proves that van Orley recommended his pupil to his former patron. Michiel Coxie was also asked to complete the commission for the stained glass windows of the Church of St. Michael and St. Gudula (now Brussels' cathedral) after Bernard van Orley died in 1541. The early Flemish artist biographer Karel van Mander states in his Schilderboeck of 1604 that Coxie trained with a "Bernard van Brussel" (Bernard from Brussels). It is therefore reasonable to conclude that Coxie was a pupil of Bernard van Orley. Even so, due to the lack of contemporary documentary evidence and surviving youth works by Coxie it is not possible to confirm with certainty that Bernard van Orly was Coxie's master.
The earliest documents attesting to Michiel Coxie's life and activities date to the period of his residence in Rome. The Florentine artist and artist's biographer Giorgio Vasari knew Coxie personally. He recounts that Coxie was commissioned by Cardinal Willem van Enckevoirt to paint frescoes in the Santa Maria dell'Anima. Work on the frescoes likely commenced around 1531. As the fresco technique is a painting technique typical of the Italian Renaissance and virtually unknown in contemporary Flemish painting, it must be assumed that by the time Coxie started work on the frescos he had already resided in Italy for a period of time so as to familiarise himself with this technique. It is therefore believed he may have arrived in Italy around 1527 after the sack of Rome by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. It appears that the frescoes in the Santa Maria dell'Anima earned him a reputation in Rome. Not long after completing the frescoes in 1534 he was admitted to the Compagnia di San Luca, Rome's guild of painters and miniaturists. He was one of the first Flemish artists to be inducted into the guild.
Coxie stayed in Italy until the end of the 1530s executing many commissions. He was involved in the decoration of the new St. Peter's Basilica but the frescoes that he created are lost due to later renovations to the interior of the church. During his stay in Italy he also provided designs for Italian engravers including for the series of 32 prints on the history of Amor and Psyche which was engraved by Agostino Veneziano and the Master of the Die and published by Antonio Salamanca in Rome between 1530 and 1560.
Coxie travelled in 1539 back to his home country via Milan. While in Milan he made two designs for tapestries. He first settled in Mechelen where he registered in the local Guild of Saint Luke on 11 November 1539. He lived in Mechelen in a house on the Bruul, in the city centre. He married Ida van Hasselt, a native of the city of Hasselt, then in the County of Loon in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège. He later resided in Liège, the principal city in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège. Liège was at that time an important artistic centre where important artists such as Lambert Lombard, Frans Floris and Willem Key were active. Lombard and Floris were Romanists, i.e. artists from the Low Countries who had travelled to Rome where they had assimilated the new Renaissance currents which they translated upon their return home into a break with the Netherlandish painting traditions. It is not entirely clear how long he stayed in Liège. It may be that for a while he travelled between Mechelen and Liège. The first children of Coxie, a son Raphael and a daughter Anna, may have been born in Liège although other sources place their births in Mechelen. Raphael followed in his father's footsteps and became a successful painter. Another son called Willem was born in Mechelen in 1545 or 1546. Willem also became a painter but no existing works by him are known.
Upon his return to the Low Countries Coxie became a sought-after artist who gained many commissions. The first important one was the 1540 commission for The Holy Kinship (now in Stift Kremsmünster, Kremsmünster, Austria). This work, probably commissioned by the Antwerp Hosemakers Guild for their altar in the Antwerp Cathedral, is a monumental triptych showing at the centre the Virgin Mary with her mother Anna, Christ and John the Baptist. The scene is set in an overwhelming Renaissance architecture with many figures. With this work Coxie offered the general public in Flanders its first confrontation with the monumental, grand style of the High Renaissance.
When Bernard van Orley died in 1541, while he was working on the designs for stained glass windows for the chapel of the Habsburg rulers in the Church of St. Michael and St. Gudula in Brussels, Coxie took over the commission and delivered four designs. Afterwards he was commissioned to design a cycle of stained glass for the St Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent. It is believed that around this time he succeeded van Orley as the court painter to Mary of Hungary, sister of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and the governor of the Netherlands. Coxie also contributed to the new Habsburg castle in Binche, construction of which started in 1546. The architect was Jacques Du Brœucq from Mons who had also lived and studied in Italy. Coxcie realized fresco paintings in the new castle. He also received the commission to paint a retabel for the rood screen of the Church of St. Michael and St. Gudula in Brussels. In 1543 Coxie was registered as a poorter (citizen) of the city of Brussels and as a member of the local Guild of Saint Luke. Brussels was at the time the administrative capital of the Low Countries where the court of Mary of Hungary was established. He operated a large workshop in Brussels. His financial success was such that by 1550 he owned two houses in Brussels. He became gradually sought after as a designer of cartoons for tapestries, first by the Habsburg rulers but later also by the local industry. This is not surprising because at that time Brussels was the world center for the production of tapestries, then an important economic factor in the entire Netherlands. He was given the title of cartoon painter of the city of Brussels for which he received an annual salary. Several of Coxcie's tapestry designs have been documented, but none have survived. Some cartoons and series of tapestries have been attributed to him, based on stylistic rather than archival grounds. He participated in the 'Jagiellonian tapestries' which were sold to Sigismund II Augustus for his castle on the Wawel. He created the designs for some biblical scenes including scenes from the Story of the First Parents, the Story of Noah and the Story of the Tower of Babel. Coxie may also have designed the tapestries for Phillip II's Royal Palace of Madrid depicting episodes of the life of Cyrus II, based on the writing of Herodotus.