Madonna with Canon Joris van der Paele

Van Eyck finished this in 1436 in Bruges, then one of the richest trading cities in Europe, and the man who paid for it wanted to be ready for death. Joris van der Paele was an elderly canon, a senior churchman, and he commissioned this panel for his own tomb chapel. That's him kneeling in white on the right, a heavy prayer book in his hands and his spectacles held loosely beside it, his face lined and tired and utterly specific. Van Eyck was among the first painters to master oil paint this way, building up thin glazes until armor, brocade, stone and skin each catch the light differently. Look into the round shield of the armored saint beside the canon, and you can find a tiny reflection of a man in a red turban, thought to be van Eyck himself.