Petrikirche altarpiece closed

Adriaen van Overbeke was a Flemish painter documented in Middelburg and Bruges in the early sixteenth century whose altarpiece for the Petrikirche represents an ambitious civic commission from a North Sea trading town. The closed altarpiece wings — showing grisaille figures or donor portraits — were the faces visible when the altarpiece was closed during Lent and on non-feast days, and their quality could be as carefully worked as the interior. Van Overbeke's Bruges training gave him access to the full Flemish workshop tradition of trompe-l'oeil grisaille and refined portraiture.

The closed altarpiece presents grisaille figures — saints painted in monochrome to simulate stone sculpture — a virtuosic technique demanding tonal control without the distractions of colour. Van Overbeke's grisaille achieves the sculptural roundness of Bruges workshop grisaille while the donor portrait panels on the interior wings are handled in full colour with the psychological directness of his Flemish training.