Jan van eyck family biography outline

Jan van Eyck is the most famous member of a family of painters traditionally believed to have originated from the town of Maaseik, in the diocese of Liège.

The work of the Van Eycks, epitomized in the Ghent Altarpiece, brought an unprecedented realism to the themes and figures of late medieval art.

Van Eyck pursued a career at two courts, working for John of Bavaria, count of Hainaut-Holland (1422–24), and then securing a prestigious appointment with Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy (1425–41).

Jan van eyck family biography outline

Employment at court secured him a high social standing unusual for a painter, as well as artistic independence from the painters’ guild of Bruges, where he had settled by 1431. Evidence that the Van Eycks bore a coat-of-arms, and thus belonged to the gentry, and that Jan was literate (as shown by his own handwriting on a drawing), is consistent with the probability that some of his frequent travels for the duke were diplomatic missions.

Many aspects of his work