 The early Flemish biographer Karel van Mander states in the "Schilder-boeck" (1604) that de Punder was in Mechelen the pupil of the painter Marcus Willems (1527-1561).Willems had been a disciple of Michiel Coxie, one of the leading Romanist painters in Flanders who had helped introduce Italian Renaissance painting there.Willems married de Punder's sister Katharina.