Jan van Eyck was the most celebrated Flemish painter of the 15th century and is widely credited with perfecting the technique of oil painting. Working at the court of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, he produced paintings of astonishing surface realism — silks, furs, jewels, reflections in convex mirrors — that had never been seen before. The Ghent Altarpiece, completed with his brother Hubert, is the most complex and ambitious painting of the entire 15th century. His Arnolfini Portrait, a double portrait of remarkable psychological intimacy, contains a tiny convex mirror in the background that reflects the entire room including, possibly, the painter himself.
