Jan van Eyck , born with Maaseik towards 1390 and died in Bruges on July 9th, 1441) is a Flemish painter , celebrates for its portraits of a meticulous realism. Its most known tables are the portrait of the husband Arnolfini and the Retable of the mystical Lamb, work key of the Western Peinture.

The exact birth date of Jan van Eyck remains unknown. The painter was surely formed in Parisian workshops of miniatures.

The oldest table that one knows to him would locate between 1417 and 1422. It is about the shutter left of a diptych representing the crucifixion and preserved at Metropolitan Museum off Art of New York.

In the years 1422 - 1424, it is employed with $the Hague, the court of Jean of Bavaria, count of Holland. With died of this one, in January 1425, it joined in Flanders his/her brother, Hubert van Eyck, also painter. It enters then to the service of the duke of Burgundy, Philippe the Good, as painter and “manservant”, with a fixed annual salary.

To the autumn 1428, it is sent to the Portugal by its guard, to tell him “the truth of body and character” of the princess Isabelle, the girl of the king Jean Ier. It is charged to paint the portrait of the princess. Work disappeared, but we know the existence of a drawing thanks to an old photograph which shows us a portrait of a completely new kind whose installation precedes the Mona Lisa of Léonard de Vinci. Fixed at Bruges, it buys a house in there 1432. It Marie, a son is born in 1434.

The paternity of works of “Van Eyck” former to 1426 (death of Hubert) is discussed and attribution with Hubert or Jan is delicate. The retable of the mystical Lamb (1432, with the cathedral Saint-Bavon, Ghent), was thus started with his/her brother and completed by him in May 1432, without one knowing exactly which is the share of each of the two brothers. The work of Jan van Eyck, apart from this exceptional chief of work, is especially made up of representations of the Virgin Mary and of portraits. Van Eyck was thus regarded as the founder of the Western portrait. Its models are almost always represented in bust; the face, seen of three quarters, is turned towards the left, and the eyes often fix the spectator, which constituted at the time a radical innovation.

The Portrait of the husbands Arnolfini (1434, with the National Gallery of London) represents in foot, in a Flemish interior, a commercial rich person established in Bruges, Giovanni Arnolfini, and his wife, at the time of their weddings. The convex mirror in the center of the table reflects two characters, perhaps the two witnesses, of which one would be Van Eyck itself. One can then see in this work a true certificate of marriage, moreover signed by van Eyck itself.

The technical contribution of Van Eyck to Western painting is capital. It carried the technique of the Oil-base paint (without to create it) and the realism of the details (in particular returned matters) at a top ever reached before him.

One finds his effigy in the effigies of the famous painters of the Netherlands of Dominique Lampson.

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