Mechtelt van Lichtenberg
Dutch painter
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Mechtelt van Lichtenberg (ca. 1520 – 1598), also known as Mechtelt toe Boecop, was a 16th century Dutch painter and one of the few northern female Dutch painters of the period whose name is known.[1]
Family
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Mechtelt (sometimes spelled Mechteld) van Lichtenberg was born in Utrecht, Holland, the daughter of Gerrit Lichtenberg (d. 1549), a member of the guild of saddlers and a city councilman, and Cornelia de Vooght van Rijnevelt.[1][2] Sometime between 1546 and 1549 she married Egbert Boecop (d. 1578), a church master in Kampen. They had a son and five daughters, and two of their daughters — Margaretha toe Boecop (before 1551 – after 1610) and Cornelia toe Boecop (1551 – after 1629) — also became recognized artists.[1][2]
Career
It is unclear how van Lichtenberg learned to paint, although it is possible she was apprenticed to Jan van Scorel.[1] Her work shows both his influence and that of his pupil Maarten van Heemskerck.[1][3]
Her earliest known work is an oil on panel entitled Pieta with Mary Magdalene from 1546, now in the collection of the Centraal Museum in Utrecht.[1][2] The Stedelijk Museum Kampen has other works by her, including Adoration of the Shepherd (1572) and a large painting of The Last Supper on two panels (1574).[1][2] The Last Supper features members of the Boecop family as apostles.[4] Few other pieces are known to have survived.[5]
She signed her early work 'Mechtelt van Lichtenberg' and her later work 'Mechtelt van Lichtenberg otherwise known as Boecop'.[1]
Selected works
- Pieta with Mary Magdalene (1546)
- Adoration of the Shepherd (1572)
- The Last Supper (1574)