National Gallery to Mount First-Ever Exhibition of All 10 Jan van Eyck Portraits
The Facts
On August 1, 2026, the National Gallery in London announced "Van Eyck: The Portraits," the first exhibition ever devoted to the portraits of Jan van Eyck (active 1422–1441). Opening November 21, 2026 and running through April 11, 2027, the ticketed show brings together all 10 of the artist's portraits from across Europe — about half of his roughly 20 surviving autograph pictures. Nine painted works will be joined by van Eyck's only surviving drawing, "Portrait of an Elderly Man" (about 1438), loaned by the Kupferstich-Kabinett in Dresden, alongside his Vienna panel of the same sitter. The National Gallery's "Arnolfini Portrait" (1434) will hang for the first time with a Berlin panel depicting the same man, and the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna is lending both of its van Eyck paintings simultaneously for the first time.
The Signal
The exhibition positions van Eyck as the defining figure in the emergence of Western portraiture, a genre curator Emma Capron says bursts onto the scene fully formed in the 1430s. For curators and collectors, the loan of both Vienna panels signals a rare institutional accommodation, while the catalogue — billed as the first English-language monograph on van Eyck's portraits — consolidates recent technical research on frames, inscriptions and underdrawing. The show's handheld, three-dimensional presentation of portraits may also challenge how museums display early Netherlandish painting.
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- Artists: Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden
- People: Emma Capron, Sir Gabriele Finaldi
- Museums: National Gallery, London, Kupferstich-Kabinett Dresden, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Gemäldegalerie Berlin, British Museum, Musea Brugge
- Locations: London
- Prices: £40, £35
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