Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?)

Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?)^[2] (previously Portrait of a Man in a Red Turban)^[3][4] is the title given to a small oil painting by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck, completed in 1433 in Bruges. The inscription at the top of the frame, which is original, reads the first known instance of his motto Als Ich Can (intended as the pun "as I/Eyck can", perhaps implying "as only I, van Eyck, can")^[5][6] was a common autograph for van Eyck but here is the first known usage and unusually is large and prominent. This and the sitter's unusually direct and confrontational gaze have been taken as an indication that the work is a self-portrait.

Artist	Jan van Eyck
Year	1433
Medium	Oil on oak panel[1]
Dimensions	25.5 cm × 19 cm (10.0 in × 7.5 in)
Location	National Gallery, London

Van Eyck's portrait of his wife in Bruges was probably a pendant to this painting, although her portrait is dated 1439 and larger. It has been proposed that van Eyck created the portrait to store in his workshop so that he could use it to display his abilities (and social status, given the fine clothes evident in the portrait) to potential clients. However, his reputation was such in 1433 that he was already highly sought after for commissioned work.^[5]

The panel has been in the National Gallery, London, since 1851, and is hung alongside van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait. The panel has been in England since its acquisition by Thomas Howard, 14th Earl of Arundel, probably during his exile in Antwerp from 1642 to 1644.^[7]

Description

Portrait

Detail of the sitter's right hand eye

Detail of the sitter's resigned mouth and grey flecked stubble

The painting is one-third life-size with the sitter in three-quarters profile.^[5] Like all van Eyck's portraits, it provides an unsparing, detailed analysis of the subject. His stubble is painted in brown and whitish-grey paint,^[8] his face is heavily lined with the onset of middle age, and his ultramarine blue eyes are semi-bloodshot.^[9] He is dressed in a dark purple and brown robe which is lined with brown fur at the neck. He has a piercing and confident gaze and looks directly at the viewer.^[9]

The man's weary expression is achieved through a combination of his tightly pursed wide mouth and the framing of his face by the headdress. The overall impression is of a man who, one scholar says, "see things – himself included – in close-up, but without losing track of the bigger picture".^[5] Typically for van Eyck, the head is a little large in relation to the torso.^[8]

Examination using a microscope and infrared shows areas of underdrawing (preparatory sketches) of the contours of the nose and jaw bone.^[9]

Headdress

The unusually large headdress is painted in vermilion red and forms the centrepiece of the painting.^[10] The depiction of its lines and folds in such an elaborate fashion allowed the artist to display his confidence in his abilities.^[6] According to the critic Teju Cole, "each wrinkle of the cloth, each fold, each soft glimmer of light across the soft weave, is painted with the holy precision Jan van Eyck helped introduce to art".^[11]

However, the man is not, as it is commonly thought, wearing a turban, but rather a chaperon. The sash or cornette that would normally hang down is tied up over the top, giving it the look of a turban.^[9][12] Perhaps having the sash tied up would be a sensible precaution if it was worn while painting. According to the art historian Craig Harbison, the expensive cloth of the headdress is a further clue that the work is a self-portrait, as much like the gilded frame, it indicates wealth and bestows prestige on the sitter.^[12]

A similar chaperon is worn by a figure in the background of his 1435 Madonna of Chancellor Rolin and in the 1438 Portrait of Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini.^[13]

• 
  Detail from van Eyck's Madonna of Chancellor Rolin (1435), showing a figure in the distance wearing a similar red headdress. Musée du Louvre, Paris
• 
  Jan van Eyck, Portrait of Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini, c. 1438. Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

Frame

Detail of the inscription on the lower frame: "JOHES DE EYCK ME FECIT ANO MCCCC.33. 21. OCTOBRIS".

The original frame survives, and unusually for the period, it is gilded. The side mouldings were carved with the grain. Those at the top and bottom ends of the panel were carved separately, also with the grain.^[14]

The vertical sides are formed from the same single piece of wood as the central panel. The frame contains the painted inscription "JOHES DE EYCK ME FECIT ANO MCCCC.33. 21. OCTOBRIS" ('Jan van Eyck made me on 21 October 1433') at the bottom, and the motto "AlC IXH XAN" ('As well as I can') at the top.^[1] The latter wording is a pun on van Eyck's name and appears on other paintings of his, always written in Greek letters, though not ever so large and prominent. As on other van Eyck frames, the letters are painted to appear carved.^[4]

Identity of the sitter

Detail of the inscription: "AlC IXH XAN".

The sitter is often thought to be van Eyck himself, though there is no documentary evidence for this. His direct gaze may be the result of the artist studying himself in a mirror, a theory further reinforced by the fact that his hands, features that van Eyck typically emphasised, are not shown.^[10][15] The costume is appropriate for a man of van Eyck's social position, and the motto is his personal one, otherwise only appearing on two surviving religious paintings, two more known only from copies, and the portrait of his wife. In none of these is it as prominent as here, a primary reason, along with the direct but bloodshot gaze, why the work is usually viewed as a self-portrait.^[5] The emphasis on the sitter's sharp and keenly intelligent bloodshot eyes is a further but subtle clue, one found again in Albrecht Dürer's self-portrait of 1500.^[16] Some art historians view the work as a form of calling card for prospective clients, in which, according to the art historian Susie Nash, van Eyck may be saying, "look at what I can do with paint, how lifelike I can make my figures".^[17]

Detail from a copy of the "Just Judges", with the possible center self portrait at center.

Autographing and dating paintings in the early 15th century was unusual. Even when dates were added, they tended to be the year of completion only, whereas here van Eyck spells out a specific date, 21 October. As too few of his paintings survive to judge his prolificacy (the confidently attributed and extant works number somewhere in the low twenties), the degree of detail and skill indicates that they took months rather than days to complete. Thus, the date may have served as a boast to potential commissioners rather than as a matter of fact.^[5]

Reflection in the mirror of the Arnolfini Portrait

Since the motto Als Ich Can appears in a number of van Eyck's later works, but not as prominently, it is believed that he is challenging other artists to try and do better. Although written in Greek lettering the phrase is originally Flemish and art historians believe that having a Flemish phrase in written in Greek script implies van Eyck saw himself in "competition with the ancients as well as with his contemporaries".^[18] Regardless of his reasoning, it can be assumed that the phrase is a sign of van Eyck's self-confidence.^[5]

Art historians have identified three other possible Van Eyck self portraits: in the now lost "Just Judges" panel of the Ghent Altarpiece (completed c. 1432), in the miniature reflection on the armour in the Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele (c. 1434—1436), and in the reflection in the mirror in the Arnolfini Portrait (1434).^[8][19] However the art historian Lorne Campbell, while recognising some facial similarity, considers the portraits on the van der Paele and Arnolfin panels to be "too small to give any indication of his appearance".^[8]

Relation to the Portrait of Margaret van Eyck

Portrait of Margaret van Eyck, 1439. Groeningemuseum, Bruges

Some earlier collectors and art historians speculated that the panel might once have formed half of a diptych with van Eyck's 1439 portrait of his wife Margaret, his only female portrait, which is also dominated by red hues (in this case a fur-lined red dress) and also shows an elaborate headdress. Both the portrait of Margaret and the male portrait in London were completed in Bruges, but there is no record of their commissions. It is thus believed that Margaret's portrait was created to mark a personal occasion in their relationship, and was intended to hang as a pendant of one of van Eyck's self-portraits.^[20]

However, it is not known which self-portrait was the original pendant to the portrait of Margaret, given that a number of candidates are known from records, but are now lost. Another possible candidate for the pendant self-portrait is that mentioned in inventory records when two of van Eyck's works were acquired before 1769 by the chapel of the Guild of Saint Luke.^[21] Some art historians, supporting the theory of a now lost diptych, mention a second lost potential self-portrait known to be similar in form to the painting in London.^[22]