Adriaen van Cronenburg: life and works

Adriaen van Cronenburg (also Cronenburgh, Cronenburch) (Schagen, c. 1525 – Bergum, after 1604) was a Northern Netherlandish painter. He produced mainly portraits.

Cronenburg was responsive between more or less 1547 and 1590, working in the provinces of Friesland and Groningen. He afterward spent some become old in Belgium, especially in Leuven and Antwerp, where he painted the portrait of Katheryn of Berain now in National Museum Cardiff.

Cronenburg’s cousin married into two aristocratic families in succession, and it is likely through this association that he became secretary of Tietjerksteradeel in 1567. Following the Union of Utrecht, Cronenburg left Friesland in 1580 due to his refusal to resign Catholicism. He was allowed to reward to Friesland in 1592 and contracted in Bergum. The last signed works known are from 1587 and 1590.

The identity of Adriaen van Cronenburg was traditional by A. Wassenbergh, formerly the director of the Fries Museum, based on his odd signature, A.a.a.a. van Cronenburg.

Anna van Cronenburg (1552 – c. 1590) was a documented relation of Adriaen, the daughter of a doctor whose second husband became mayor of Leeuwarden in 1579. The thing of the real identity of the performer was raised in an article in 1934 by G. Marlier.

Various works by Cronenburg are in the Fries Museum, and a action of four combined portraits of women is in the Prado Museum in Spain. The Prado activity are all three-quarter length standing portraits of ladies, two next daughters of perhaps ten years old. One has a skull upon a table, like the Cardiff portrait. The four, plus a purposeless fifth work, were inventoried in the Spanish royal gathering at the old royal palace, the Royal Alcazar of Madrid, in 1636, and piece of legislation their subjects in tummy of the thesame background of a Renaissance blind arcade later than niches and green drapery, and are very nearly the same size (about 1.05 x 0.79 cm).