(b c. 1495–1500; d after 1541). German painter. On 12 January 1521 he received citizenship of Nuremberg, where he is thought to have studied under Wolf Traut. Like Traut, he used an austere graphic line and dry, bright colours. While in Nuremberg he painted a Portrait of a Man (1523; Heidelberg, Kurpfälz. Mus.; stolen 1974) and a portrait of Hans Geyer (1524; Raleigh, NC Mus. A.). By 1527 he was working for Kasimir, Markgraf zu Brandenburg-Kulmbach, Burgrave of Nuremberg (1481–1527); he later painted a memorial picture of the Margrave with his wife Susanna (untraced; copy, Heilbronn, Protestant Pfarrkirche). When Susanna then married Otto Henry, the future Elector Palatine, in 1529, Gertner went with her to the court of Neuburg an der Donau. A portrait of her (c. 1530; Berchtesgaden, Schlossmus.) was followed by portraits of Otto Henry and other members of the house of Wittelsbach (1531–9; mostly in Munich, Bayer. Nmus.) which took ‘maister Peter, Hofmaller’ to various German courts. That of Count Palatine Philip the Warlike (1530; Munich, Bayer. Nmus. and Bayer. Staatsgemäldesammlungen) includes a view of Vienna during the Turkish siege. Gertner also painted such religious works as the Crucifixion (1537; Baltimore, MD, Walters A.G.), but it is chiefly his court portraits that are fascinating for their precise rendition of clothes and jewellery. They were prepared by adding colour to pen-and-ink drawings. Pictorially complete modelli, painted on parchment, served the studio as a basis for producing replicas. Gertner’s signature was the monogram PG with a gardener’s spade.