Antonis Mor

Antonis Mor (c. 1517 – c. 1577) was born in Utrecht and trained under Jan van Scorel. He joined the Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp in 1547 and soon afterwards found a steady patron in Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, Bishop of Arras and later cardinal. He became one of the most sought-after court portraitists in Europe, painting Philip II, the Portuguese royal family in Lisbon and Mary Tudor, whose portrait by him became the best-known likeness of the queen; in 1553 Philip appointed him painter in his service. His formal style of court portraiture, largely based on Titian, gave his sitters a grand and self-possessed air and began a tradition on the Iberian Peninsula that led to Velázquez. After leaving the Spanish court in 1561 he moved between Utrecht, Antwerp and Brussels, painting merchants and craftsmen as well as courtiers, and from 1568 he lived in Antwerp. Here: Cardinal de Granvelle's Dwarf.