Van Eyck: The Portraits

Get ready for a once-in-a-lifetime experience: for the first time ever, Jan van Eyck’s incredible portraits are all coming together in one place.

You may already be familiar with "The Arnolfini Portrait" (1434), a true fan-favorite at the National Gallery. It’s the kind of painting you can stare at for hours, uncovering hidden secrets and marveling at the tiny, microscopic details van Eyck achieved with his pioneering oil techniques.

This year in London, eight more of these masterpieces are arriving from all over Europe to join the exhibition. This is the first time these nine surviving portraits—representing half of everything van Eyck ever created—can be seen side-by-side. These works are breathtaking for their glowing colors and precision, but they also tell a bigger story: they mark the moment when artists first began to capture the lives of everyday people.