b. about 1484 Leiden, The Netherlands, d. about 1560 Leiden, The Netherlands
designer; draftsman; painter
Dutch

Far more is known about Pieter Cornelisz. Kunst's life than about what his art actually looked like. The eldest son of Cornelis Engebrechtsz., a prominent Leiden painter, Cornelisz. trained under his father. Around 1508 he was probably also influenced by an important fellow pupil, Lucas van Leyden, who quickly developed into one of the Netherlands' finest engravers. The influence may have been somewhat mutual: Karel Van Mander claimed that Cornelisz. taught glass painting to van Leyden. In 1514 and 1519, Cornelisz.'s name appeared in Leiden's civic guard lists as a painter. His earliest recorded work is a glass window from 1516 for a nearby cloister. After living in Bruges from 1530 to 1532, he returned to Leiden, where he designed a pulpit for the Saint Pieterskerk, his only documented work.

Besides designing stained-glass windows, maps, and furniture, Cornelisz. made paintings, but none are known. For years, scholars attributed works to him based on drawings for stained-glass windows made between 1571 and 1573 and signed PC. However, in 1981 a scholar demonstrated that the monogram also could be read DC. With that visual evidence in question, Cornelisz.'s landscape and figure styles remain rather mysterious.