Portrait of Jean Gros

Rogier van der Weyden, the greatest painter of mid-fifteenth-century Brussels, painted this portrait of the Burgundian official Jean Gros about 1460–64, in the last years of his life. The sitter, an officer of the court of Philip the Good who had served as treasurer of the Order of the Golden Fleece, is shown in three-quarter view against a plain ground, his hands joined in prayer; the reverse of the panel carries his coat of arms, the usual accompaniment of such devotional portraits. Van der Weyden’s gift for characterisation — the precise, slightly weary face, the quiet intensity of the gaze — made him the most sought-after portraitist of his generation north of the Alps, and this panel, painted when the master was at the height of his fame, is one of the few certain portraits from his last decade. The painting is held in the Art Institute of Chicago.