Jan Van Eyck and the Revolution in the Art of the Portrait

This member lecture is available as both an in person and a recording only event. The recording will be made available to ALL attendees on the Monday following the event and will be available for 4 weeks.

All of Jan van Eyck’s nine surviving portraits will be shown in the exhibition, a remarkable and exciting opportunity as 15th century paintings on panel are so fragile and not easily moved away from their usual setting. For example, for the first time in its long history, Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum is allowing both of its paintings by Van Eyck to be loaned at the same time.

Jan van Eyck’s Portrait of His Wife Margaret from the Bruges Groeningemuseum will hang next to Van Eyck’s newly conserved possible Self-Portrait and the National Gallery’s own Arnolfini Double Portrait will be joined by a probable single Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini from Berlin.

The lecture will explain the ground-breaking beginnings of portraiture by Flemish painters of whom Jan van Eyck was the defining and innovative artist of this new subject. The nine portraits will then be put into the context of his life and career both as a painter and also a diplomat on behalf of the Burgundian Court of which he was a part. The portrait as a subject became a key contribution by Flemish painters of the Northern Renaissance who followed him and were so influenced by him.