Portrait of Margaret van Eyck [SEP] creator
Portrait of Margaret van Eyck
Portrait of Margaret van Eyck (or Margaret, the Artist's Wife) is a 1439 oil on wood painting by the Early Netherlandish master Jan van Eyck. It is one of the two latest of his surviving paintings, and one of the earliest European artworks to depict a painter's spouse. Completed when she was around 34, it was hung until the early 18th century in the Bruges chapel of the Guild of painters. The work is thought to be a pendant or diptych panel for either
the man's unusually direct and confrontational gaze, have been taken as an indication that the work is a self-portrait.
Probably his "Portrait of Margaret van Eyck" was a pendant, although her only known portrait is both dated 1439 and larger. It has been proposed that van Eyck created the portrait to store in his workshop so that he could use it display his abilities (and social status, given the fine clothes evident in the portrait) to potential clients. However, his reputation was such in 1433