Room 28
Bouts, Campin, van Eyck
Paintings in this room
A fair-haired man stands in an interior, gazing past us. Through the window behind him we can see a landscape with a church in the distance. The date on the back wall makes this the earliest datable – and in fact the only dated painting – by Bouts, and the earliest dated portrait to include an op...
Christ’s body, wrapped in a white shroud, is being placed in a tomb by his grief-stricken family and followers. His mother Mary, clasping his wrist, seems on the edge of collapse; John the Evangelist holds her up. Behind them are Mary’s sisters, one wiping tears from her eyes, the other holding h...
This striking portrait of a man in a red hat forms a pair with Campin’s A Woman – the sitters were clearly husband and wife. We do not know who they were, but their clothes suggest they were prosperous townsfolk, perhaps from Tournai where Campin lived and worked.Campin has arranged the older hus...
This striking portrait of a woman forms a pair with Campin’s portrait A Man: the sitters were clearly married. We don't know who they were, but their clothes suggest they were prosperous townsfolk, perhaps from Tournai where Campin lived and worked.Campin has conveyed their personalities and rela...
Follower of Robert Campin
This puzzling picture of the Virgin and Child is often called the ‘Firescreen Madonna’, after the large wicker firescreen behind the Virgin’s head. We do not know who it was made for, or where or how it was used. We are not even sure how it originally looked: it was extensively restored in the ni...
This small portrait is puzzling in many ways. We don‘t know who this man was or why he is holding a scroll, which is – rather strangely – inscribed on the outside. The painting’s tall, narrow shape is unusual and there are mysterious inscriptions carved into the very large, cracked stone parapet...
This must be one of the most famous and intriguing paintings in the world. A richly dressed man and woman stand in a private room. They are probably Giovanni di Nicolao di Arnolfini, an Italian merchant working in Bruges, and his wife.Although the room is totally plausible – as if Jan van Eyck ha...
This painting shows the traditional Christmas story: the infant Christ, lying in the manger, is watched over by Mary, Joseph and adoring angels, while an ox and donkey peer out of the darkness behind. Through the crumbling back wall we see shepherds and their sheep up on the hills huddled around...
A young lady in an extravagant green dress sits on the floor, reading. Although she wears fifteenth-century clothing and is in a medieval room, she is a biblical figure: Saint Mary Magdalene. The pot of oil with which she anointed Christ’s feet – the object traditionally associated with her – sta...
Rogier van der Weyden and workshop
We are looking at the east end of a Gothic church, where the body of a bishop is being exhumed from his tomb in front of the high altar. This is Saint Hubert, Bishop of Maastricht and Liège, who died in 727. He is being moved from Liège to the newly founded abbey of Saint-Hubert-en-Ardenne, in 82...