Christoffel Pierson

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Christoffel Pierson
File:Christoffel Pierson door Arnoud van Halen.jpg
Portrait by Arnold van Halen.
Born Christoffel Pierson
(1631-05-19)May 19, 1631
The Hague
Died 11 August 1714(1714-08-11) (aged 83)
Nationality Netherlands
Known for Painting
Movement Baroque

Christoffel Pierson (1631–1714) was a Dutch Golden Age painter.


File:Christoffel Pierson - trompe l-oeil.jpg
Trompe l'oeil with hawking equipment.
File:1699 Pierson Stillleben mit Jagdwaffen und -gerät anagoria.JPG
Still life with hunting weapons and devices, 1699.

According to Houbraken, he was brought up to become a merchant. Schooled in Latin, French, and drawing, he spent time as a clerk (in a "comptoir"), but showed more talent for painting, which he learned from friend Bartholomeus Meyburgh, who was only 3 years older than he was.[1] In 1551-1552 he spent a year studying with Meyburgh, and then he moved to Schiedam, where he married his first wife in 1652.[1][2] In 1653 he travelled with Meyburgh to Germany.[1] On the way back they travelled through Bremervoorde, where they met with the Swedish Army, and Pierson painted the portrait of Fieldmarshal Carl Gustaf Wrangel.[1] The fieldmarshal was so satisfied that he offered both men the chance of becoming court painter to Queen Christina, but they turned it down, Meyburgh because he didn't want to, and Pierson because he had only just gotten married 6 months beforehand.[1]

File:1699 Pierson Stillleben mit Artemisbüste, Jagdwaffen und -gerät anagoria.JPG
Still life with bust of Artemis, hunting weapons and devices

Upon his return to the Netherlands Pierson moved his household to Gouda where, inspired by the success of Anthonie Leemans, he made a profitable living making similar trompe l'oeil paintings of hunting paraphernalia, birdcages, and weaponry.[1] He was so successful at this that many were fooled into believing that these objects truly hung on the wall.[1] In Gouda he also made drawings on parchment of the famous stained glass windows of the Janskerk (Gouda), including those by the brothers Dirk Crabeth and Wouter Crabeth I, for the Gouda city council.[1] After the death of his first wife, he remarried a woman from Schiedam and moved back there in 1679, where he lived until 1691 before returning to Gouda, where he later died.[1]

He was also a good poet, and wrote as many poems as he made paintings.[1] The painter and printmaker Arnoud van Halen made a portrait of him for his cabinet of poets, that at the time Houbraken was writing, totalled more than 100 portraits.[1]

His last play Dagobert was published in the year of his death.[1]

Though he worked in several locations, most notably in Gouda and Schiedam, he is registered only in 1685 as a member of the Schiedam Guild of St. Luke.[2]


  1. 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 (Dutch) Kristoffel Pierson biography in De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (1718) by Arnold Houbraken, courtesy of the Digital library for Dutch literature
  2. 2.0 2.1 RKD entry on Pierson