Portrait of a Man (‘Léal Souvenir’)

This piercing likeness of a middle-aged man, painted on a small oak panel, is among the high points of Jan van Eyck’s portraiture and one of the earliest independent portraits in Northern European painting. Van Eyck signed the work, whose gessoed frame carries the words Léal souvenir — ‘loyal remembrance’ — together with the painted date of 1433 and the artist’s motto, the sitter otherwise unidentified. One of a very small group of panels securely attributed to the master, it has long been a candidate for a rare self-portrait, an identification the National Gallery in London treats as unconfirmed.