Jan Van Eyck

Jan van Eyck must have been born before 1395, for in October 1422 he is recorded as the varlet de chambre et peintre (“honorary equerry and painter”) of John of Bavaria, count of Holland. He continued to work in the palace of The Hague until the count’s death in 1425 and then settled briefly in Bruges before he was summoned, that summer, to Lille to serve Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, the most powerful ruler and foremost patron of the arts in Flanders. Jan remained in the duke’s employ until his death. He served as court artist and diplomat, and was a senior member of the Tournai painters’ guild.

A court salary freed him from commissioned work, and allowed a large degree of artistic freedom. Over the following decade van Eyck’s reputation and technical ability grew, mostly from his innovative approaches towards the handling and manipulating of oil paint. Unlike most of his peers, his reputation never diminished and he remained well regarded over the following centuries. His revolutionary approach to oil was such that a myth, perpetuated by Giorgio Vasari, arose that he had invented oil painting.

Considered revolutionary within his lifetime, van Eyck’s designs and methods were heavily copied and reproduced. His motto, one of the first and still most distinctive signatures in art history, ALS ICH KAN («AS I CAN»), a pun on his name, first appeared in 1433 on Portrait of a Man in a Turban, which can be seen as indicative of his emerging self-confidence at the time. The years between 1434 and 1436 are generally considered his high point when he produced works including the Madonna of Chancellor Rolin, Lucca Madonna and Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele.

In 1431 Jan purchased a house in Bruges and, about the same time, married a woman named Margaret, about whom little more is known than that she was born in 1406 and was to bear him at least two children. Residing in Bruges, Jan continued to paint, and in 1436 he again made a secret voyage for Philip.

Van Eyck undertook a number of journeys on Philip the Duke of Burgundy’s behalf between 1426 and 1429, described in records as «secret» commissions, for which he was paid multiples of his annual salary. Their precise nature is still unknown, but they seem to involve his acting as envoy of the court. In 1426 he departed for «certain distant lands», possibly to the Holy Land, a theory given weight by the topographical accuracy of Jerusalem in The Three Marys at the Tomb, a painting completed by members of his workshop c. 1440.

A better documented commission was the journey to Lisbon along with a group intended to prepare the ground for the Duke’s wedding to Isabella of Portugal. Van Eyck’s was tasked with painting the bride, so that the Duke could visualise her before their marriage. Because Portugal was ridden with plague, their court was itinerant and the Dutch party met them at the out-of-the-way castle of Avis. Van Eyck spent nine months there, returning to the Netherlands with Isabella as a bride to be; the couple married on Christmas Day of 1429. After his return, he was preoccupied with completing the Ghent Altarpiece, which was consecrated on 6 May 1432 at Saint Bavo Cathedral during an official ceremony for Philip. Records from 1437 say that he was held in high esteem by the upper ranks of Burgundian nobility and was employed in foreign commissions.

Jan van Eyck died on 9 July 1441, in Bruges. He was buried in the graveyard of the Church of St Donatian. As a mark of respect, Philip made a one-off payment to Jan’s widow Margaret, to a value equal to the artist’s annual salary. He left behind many unfinished works to be completed by his workshop journeymen. After his death, Lambert van Eyck ran the workshop, as Jan’s reputation and stature steadily grew. Early in 1442 Lambert had the body exhumed and placed inside St. Donatian’s Cathedral.