Портрет Яна де Леу

Jan van Eyck painted this small portrait in 1436 in Bruges, where he was the town's most celebrated painter and the sitter, Jan de Leeuw, was a working goldsmith. What makes it unusual is the frame, which van Eyck painted to look like polished metal and covered with an inscription written as if the picture itself were speaking. In the Flemish of the day it tells you the man first opened his eyes on the feast of Saint Ursula in 1401, and that van Eyck painted him in 1436. Where the text should read his surname, Leeuw, there is instead a little golden lion, since Leeuw is the Dutch word for lion. Five years after sitting for this, de Leeuw was elected head of the Bruges goldsmiths' guild.