Portrait of Cardinal Niccolò Albergati

Niccolò Albergati was a papal diplomat, and in the winter of 1431 he passed through the Low Countries on a peace mission between the great powers of Europe. A busy man like that could spare a painter only a short sitting. So Jan van Eyck did something practical: he drew the cardinal quickly in silverpoint, from life, and along the edges of that small drawing he wrote himself notes on the colours, the nose a little reddish here, the grey of the stubble there, so he could finish the picture later without the sitter. That drawing survives, in Dresden. This is the painting he built from it, back in his workshop. You can see the care in the aging skin, the tired folds around the eyes, the faint red veins van Eyck had noted. Albergati sat for only a few hours. The face he left behind was studied for weeks.