All Nine Jan van Eyck Portraits Are Together at the National Gallery
“Van Eyck: The Portraits” brings all of the Netherlandish artist’s known portraits together for the first time
A forthcoming exhibition at the National Gallery in London brings together all nine portraits by the Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck for the first time ever. The painter, who was born around 1390, led a multifaceted life, serving as a top-secret court envoy for Duke Phillip of Burgundy as well as court painter. Aside from the National Gallery’s iconic Arnolfini Portrait, the exhibition, titled “Van Eyck: The Portraits,” includes loans from the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and the British Museum.
Van Eyck had a precise, sensitive eye for human character. He was an early case of a portraitist who placed personality and truthful imperfection over idealization. His contemporary and rival, Rogier van der Weyden, was more flattering.
“None of the stylized likenesses that preceded his work would pass as a portrait today: you would not recognise their sitters if you walked by them on the street. This changes with van Eyck,” says National Gallery Curator of Early Netherlandish and German Paintings Emma Capron, continuing, “Pushing the possibilities of oil painting to convey a convincing illusion of reality, suddenly we are faced with individuals pulsating with life, every single detail of their appearance captured, sitters who look back at us and who speak to us through elaborate and multilingual inscriptions. These portraits’ ability to baffle by their precision and liveliness is intact today.”
“Van Eyck: The Portraits” is on view at the National Gallery in London from November 21 through April 11, 2027.