Image: National Gallery, London
The National Gallery in London will bring together every painted portrait known to be by Jan van Eyck in “Van Eyck: The Portraits”, which runs from 21 November 2026 to 11 April 2027. According to the gallery, the nine works will be assembled from collections across Europe, and the exhibition will not travel to any other venue.
The gallery notes that these nine portraits account for half of all the paintings by van Eyck that survive worldwide, which makes the reunion an unusually complete view of one part of his output. It presents the show as the first occasion on which all of them have been seen side by side.
The sitters were not rulers or members of the high nobility. The gallery identifies them as prosperous craftsmen and merchants, along with members of the artist’s own family. Van Eyck recorded them in close physical detail – alert eyes, skin creased with age, the shadow of stubble, reddened cheeks – qualities the gallery associates with a decisive turn towards realism in painting.
Among the works is the National Gallery’s own “Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?)”, dated 1433, the question mark in whose title leaves open whether it depicts the artist himself. Alongside the exhibition, the gallery has published a short film examining the underdrawing beneath van Eyck’s “Arnolfini Portrait”, another of its holdings.
The programme around the show includes curator’s introductions in the gallery and online, an online exhibition tour planned for January 2027, and practical courses on portraiture inspired by van Eyck scheduled for December and March. A catalogue accompanies the exhibition.
“Van Eyck: The Portraits” forms part of the Sunley Exhibition Programme, supported by the Bernard Sunley Foundation, with research for the show supported by the Rick Mather David Scrase Foundation. Standard tickets cost £18, including an audio guide, and entry is free for members and visitors under 18.
