Born between 1498 and 1500, Coxcie seems to have trained in Brussels with Bernaert van Orley. Afterwards he went abroad, working successfully in Rome in the 1530s, where he decorated in fresco two chapels in the church of Santa Maria dell’Anima and studied and copied the works of Raphael and his pupils.
In 1539 Coxcie was in Milan designing tapestries for the Cathedral there. He returned to the Low Countries by 11 November 1539, where he became a master of the Mechlin guild of painters. By 1543 he moved to Brussels where he later became the salaried maker of designs for the tapestry-weavers of the town. He had become painter to Mary of Hungary by 1546 and painted frescoes in her chapel at Binche. He was still working at the time of his death at the age of about 93.
