Crucifixion

Van Eyck was court painter to Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, and living in Bruges when he painted this, most likely in the later 1430s. The Metropolitan Museum dates it around 1436 to 1438, and other scholars have argued for anything from the 1420s to his death in 1441. The panel is small, about 56 centimetres tall and under 20 wide, the left half of a pair made to be prayed in front of at arm's length. When the Met bought the two in 1933, from the Soviet government's sales of Hermitage pictures, they went under the name of Hubert, Jan's older brother. The credit has since moved to Jan and his workshop. A note in Russian on the back records the Hermitage years: in 1867 the paint was lifted off its oak and laid onto canvas.