He moved from Antwerp to set up a workshop in
Brussels in 1562 and was appointed court sculptor the following year. In Brussels, he specialized in funeral monuments for an aristocratic clientele and was also a successful merchant, and financier. He belonged to the immediate entourage of the diplomat
Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, President of the Council of State from 1556 to 1564. He collaborated as sculptor and bronze-founder with the sculptor
Joos Aerts in the gilt-bronze and black marble memorial of
Charles the Bold (died 1477) in the
Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk ("Church of Our Lady") (
Bruges), completed in 1563. Letters between
de Granvelle, now in
Madrid, and his secretary Morillon in Brussels show that Jonghelinck, now as medallist, made a mould for a small medal in the spring of 1566. Successively, he cast medals in lead, tin, copper, silver or gold of the type known as
Geuzen medals. One of his masterworks, a full-length, over-lifesize bronze of
Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba – made in 1569 from the gunmetal of the 16 cannon captured at Jemmingen and erected in the
citadel of Antwerp – was destroyed after the death of Alba on orders of King
Philip II. Even in Italy and Madrid, the statue was thought to be too pompous and to exhibit unnecessary cruelty. It is a coincidence that Jonghelinck at that moment had already returned to Antwerp, where he was "waardijn" (director) of the mint. His bronze of
Silenus astride a Cask, 1570, is the figure for a fountain in the gardens of the
Aranjuez; it replaced
Giambologna's
Samson and a Philistine, which had been given to
Charles, Prince of Wales in 1623, on the ill-fated diplomatic mission over the "
Spanish Match". His brother,
Niclaes Jonghelinck, was a major patron of
Pieter Brueghel who owned 16 pictures of his by 1565, including many of his best known. ==References==