Gerard David was born c. 1460 in Oudewater, near Gouda. In January 1484 he was admitted as a master to the painters' guild in Bruges. He was an officer (Vinder) in the guild in the years 1487-1488, 1495-1496, and 1497-1498; in 1501 he was dean of the guild. It is generally accepted that David was a member of the Antwerp guild in 1515, though the duration and purpose of his membership are not known. Many of his paintings can be dated, and several drawings have been attributed to him with a reasonable degree of certainty. Illuminated manuscripts of the Bruges-Ghent School show the influence of David's style and compositions, but it is still a matter of conjecture whether David actually engaged in manuscript illustration. He died in Bruges on 13 August 1523. [Hand, John Oliver, and Martha Wolff. Early Netherlandish Painting. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1986: 63.]
Artist Bibliography
1863
Weale, W. H. James. "Gerard David." Le Beffroi 1 (1863): 223-234, 2 (1864-1865): 288-297, 3 (1866-1870): 334-346.
1905
Bodenhausen, Eberhard Freiherr von. Gerard David und seine Schule. Munich, 1905.
1907
Winkler, Friedrich. "David, Gerard." In Thieme-Becker 1913, 8:452-455.
1963
Folie, Jacqueline. "Les oeuvres authentifiées des primitifs flamands," Bulletin de l'Institut royal du Patrimoine artistique 6 (1963): 230-232.
1967
Friedländer 1928, vol. 3 (vol. 6, part 2, 1971).
1986
Hand, John Oliver and Martha Wolff. Early Netherlandish Painting. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1986: 63.