Portrait of Antoine, 'Grand Bâtard' of Burgundy

Around 1460 the Dukes of Burgundy sat for three portraits by van der Weyden: Philip the Good, his heir Charles the Bold, and this man, Antoine, Philip's son by a mistress and known as the Grand Batard, the Great Bastard, a title he carried without shame. Illegitimacy was no bar at that court. In 1456 he had been admitted to the Order of the Golden Fleece, the duke's elite chivalric brotherhood of some 30 knights, and he wears its collar of linked flints and firesteels, the little golden ram hanging at his chest. He holds an arrow between his fingers, and no one now is sure why, perhaps a prize from an archery contest, perhaps a badge no record explains. Van der Weyden gives him a cool sideways stare into the middle distance.