Collection: Jan van Eyck

Jan van Eyck was an early Netherlandish painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the supreme figures of the Early Northern Renaissance. Such was his legacy, that he has been called “the inventor of oil-painting” by Vasari, Ernst Gombrich,, although this claim is now considered an oversimplification. Surviving records date his birth at around 1380 or 1390, in Maaseik (then Maaseyck, hence his name), Limburg, which is located in present-day Belgium.

He took employment in The Hague around 1422, when he was already a master painter with workshop assistants, and was employed as painter and valet de chambre to John III the Pitiless, ruler of the counties of Holland and Hainaut. Some time after John's death in 1425, he was appointed as court painter to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, and worked in Lille before moving to Bruges in 1429, where he lived until his death.

He was highly regarded by Philip, and was dispatched on several diplomatic visits abroad, including one to Lisbon in 1428 to discuss the possibility of a marriage contract between the duke and Isabella of Portugal.

His formative teachers included Robert Campin. Notable paintings include Arnolfini Portrait, Saint Francis reveives the stigmata, Saint Barbara, and Madonna with Canon Joris van der Paele. His practice spanned portrait, religious painting, and portrait painting. He belongs to the Renaissance movement.