Colijn de Coter

1446 – present

Flemish painter. Contracts survive for two lost works by this artist: one of 1493, in the ledgers of the Guild of St Luke in Antwerp, names a 'Colyn van Brusele' as a master of the Guild, commissioned by the Confraternity of St Luke to decorate the vault of its chapel in Onze Lieve Vrouw (later the cathedral); the other, in the accounts of the Confraternity of St Eligius, Brussels, reveals that Coter undertook in 1509-10 to paint the doors of a tabernacle, which was completed in 1511. The dates of these documents mark the known boundaries of Coter's artistic activity, but his surviving work suggests these may be extended from 1480 to 1525. Three signed paintings are known: St Luke Painting the Virgin in the parish church of Vieure, Cosne d'Allier, the altarpiece of the Trinity (Paris, Louvre) and the Virgin Crowned by Angels (Düsseldorf, private collection). Inscriptions stating that Coter painted the works in Brussels appear on the borders of the robes. These works serve as reference points for other attributions and illustrate the essential phases of Coter's stylistic and technical evolution.

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