Early life and training 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.
Foreign travel 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 not entirely clear how long he stayed in Liège. It may be that for a while he travelled between Mechelen and Liège. 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. 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.
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, then the ruler over the Low Countries, commissioned many works from Coxie. Coxie also gained commissions from many other prominent persons such as the Morillon family for whom he painted the
Triptych with the triumph of Christ (
M – Museum Leuven). Guy Morillon, originally from Burgundy, was one of the most prominent notables of Leuven and a secretary to king Charles V. Coxie further designed the decorations for the
joyous entry of then crown prince Philip II in Brussels in 1549 and a series of portraits of the Habsburg rulers. When in 1555 king Charles V stepped down from the throne in favor of his son Philip II, the new ruler maintained the royal support for Coxie. Philip tasked Coxie with making a true-to-life copy of the
Ghent Altarpiece by the van Eyck brothers. When in 1566 the
Beeldenstorm caused the destruction of many religious objects he is said to have attempted to defend Mechelen against the
iconoclasts. This shows that he was at heart a devout Catholic and a loyalist of the Habsburg court. The Beeldenstorm caused the loss of a large portion of Coxcie's existing works. This era of religious turmoil saw the painter facing many other setbacks. This illustrates the extent of the support by powerful figures which the artist enjoyed at that time. Even the
Duke of Alva bestowed favors on him and his family when he granted Michiel and his son Raphael dispensation from the compulsory billeting of Spanish soldiers at their homes. His wife died in 1569. Two months after her death he married Jeanne van Schelle (or van Schellen or van Schallen), with whom he had two more children of whom Michiel the Younger became a painter. The painter's whereabouts from the 1570s are not entirely clear. In October 1572 Spanish troops plundered
Mechelen for three days after retaking the city from an army under the command of
William the Silent, the leader of the Dutch Revolt. The event known as the
Spanish Fury caused many local painters to flee to Antwerp. Coxie was outside of the country, possibly in Spain, when the events happened. His house was plundered and some painters from Antwerp were able to buy back some tapestry designs which Spanish soldiers had looted from his home. Upon his return to Flanders, Coxie stayed in Mechelen and took on two pupils in his workshop. However, Mechelen had become a cultural wasteland while Antwerp offered attractive opportunities as many of the altarpieces which had been destroyed needed to be replaced and its leading history painters
Frans Floris and
Willem Key had just died. He completed an altarpiece in Antwerp in 1575 and was registered in the Guild of Saint Luke of Antwerp in 1578. He remained in Antwerp during the period from 1580 to 1585 when the city was governed by a Calvinist government. He was even able as a Catholic to obtain commissions from the local government, which was tolerant of Catholics. In 1585 he was registered as a tenant in the Kloosterstraat in Antwerp, while his house in Mechelen was rented out. After the
Fall of Antwerp and the return of Spanish Catholic control over the city in 1585, Coxie immediately gained commissions from patrons in Mechelen, including the city government. The continued appreciation of the Spanish king for the elderly artist was demonstrated when in 1589, he granted him an annuity. Coxie continued painting even when he was over 90 years old.. His last work, dated 1592, was the
Triptych of the Legend of Santa Gudula, today in the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula in Brussels. This contains on the back of one of the side panels the only known portrait of Philip II painted by the artist. Shortly thereafter, he died after accidentally falling off a scaffold while working on the restoration of the
Judgment of Solomon in the
Antwerp City Hall that he had made nine years earlier for the Antwerp City Council. ==Work==