![Jan van Eyck - Léal Souvenir - National Gallery, London](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Jan_van_Eyck_-_L%C3%A9al_Souvenir_-_National_Gallery%2C_London.jpg)
''Léal Souvenir'' (also known as ''Timotheus'' or ''Portrait of a Man'') is a small
oil-on-oak panel portrait by the
Early Netherlandish painter
Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck ( , ; – July 9, 1441) was a painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Northern Renaissance art. Ac ...
, dated 1432. The sitter has not been identified, but his highly individual features suggest a historical person rather than the hypothetical ideal usual at the time in northern
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
portraiture;
[Smith, 42] his slight and unassuming torso is contrasted with a sophisticated facial expression. His features have been described as "plain and rustic", yet thoughtful and inward-looking. A number of art historians, including
Erwin Panofsky, have detected mournfulness in his expression. The sitter was apparently significant enough a member of the
Burgundian duke Philip the Good
Philip III (french: Philippe le Bon; nl, Filips de Goede; 31 July 1396 – 15 June 1467) was Duke of Burgundy from 1419 until his death. He was a member of a cadet line of the Valois dynasty, to which all 15th-century kings of France belonge ...
's circle that his court painter portrayed him.
The man sits before an imitation
parapet
A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Whe ...
with three sets of painted inscriptions, each rendered to look as if chiselled or scratched into stone.
[Panofsky, 80] Van Eyck did not have full command of either
classical Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
or
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
and made errors, so readings by modern scholars vary. The first inscription is in Greek and seems to spell "TYΜ.ωΘΕΟϹ", which has not been satisfactorily interpreted but has led some to title the work ''Timotheus''. The middle reads in French ''"Leal Souvenir"'' ("Loyal Memory") and indicates that the portrait is a posthumous commemoration. The third records van Eyck's signature and the date of execution.
[Bauman, 37] The 19th-century art historian
Hippolyte Fierens-Gevaert
Hippolyte Gevaert or Fierens-Gevaert (1870, Brussels - 1926, Liège) was a Belgian art historian, philosopher, art critic, singer and writer.
Life
He had studied at the Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles in 1890 and won first prize for singing. Th ...
identified the lettering "TYΜ.ωΘΕΟC"
[Paviot, 212] with the Greek musician
Timotheus of Miletus
Timotheus of Miletus ( grc, Τιμόθεος ὁ Μιλήσιος; c. 446 – 357 BC) was a Greek musician and dithyrambic poet, an exponent of the "new music." He added one or more strings to the lyre, whereby he incurred the displeasure of the S ...
. Panofsky drew the same conclusion, eliminating other Greeks bearing the name Timothy; they were of religious or military background, professions that do not match the civilian dress of the sitter. Panofsky believed the man was probably a highly placed musician in Philip's court, possibly
Gilles Binchois
Gilles de Bins dit Binchois (also Binchoys; – 20 September 1460) was a Franco-Flemish composer of early Renaissance music. A central figure of the Burgundian School, Binchois and his colleague Guillaume Du Fay were deeply influenced by the ...
.
[Wood, 650]
More recent research focuses on the legalistic wording in one of the inscriptions, suggesting to some that he was in some way connected to the legal profession, or an employee of
Philip the Good
Philip III (french: Philippe le Bon; nl, Filips de Goede; 31 July 1396 – 15 June 1467) was Duke of Burgundy from 1419 until his death. He was a member of a cadet line of the Valois dynasty, to which all 15th-century kings of France belonge ...
.
The panel was acquired in 1857 by the
National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director o ...
, London, where it is on permanent display.
Description
''Léal Souvenir'' is one of the earliest surviving examples of secular
portraiture
A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this re ...
in medieval European art and one of the earliest extant unidealised representations. This is apparent in its
realism
Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to:
In the arts
*Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts
Arts movements related to realism include:
*Classical Realism
*Literary realism, a move ...
and acute observation of the details of the man's everyday appearance. Van Eyck worked in the early
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
tradition and pioneered the manipulation of oil paint. Oil allowed smooth
translucent
In the field of optics, transparency (also called pellucidity or diaphaneity) is the physical property of allowing light to pass through the material without appreciable scattering of light. On a macroscopic scale (one in which the dimensions a ...
surfaces, could be applied across a range of thicknesses and was manipulable while wet, which allowed far more subtle detail than available to previous generations of painters.
[Smith, 61]
The parapet dominates the portrait, and his head seems oversized compared to his upper body.
Some art historians speculate that this is a result of van Eyck's then inexperience; it was only his second known portrait. Meiss speculates that van Eyck may have "los
control of
hedesign as a whole by indulging his astounding virtuosity."
Parapet
![201005151356 NE CSM Pancuius](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/201005151356_NE_CSM_Pancuius.jpg)
The decayed
parapet
A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Whe ...
allows van Eyck to display his skill at mimicking stone chiselling and scarring,
and shows the influence of classical Roman
funerary art, particularly stone memorials. The parapet gives the work
gravitas, the chips and cracks conveying a sense of the venerable, or, according to art historian
Elisabeth Dhanens
Elisabeth Dhanens (1915 – 11 March 2014) was a Belgian art historian specialising in Early Netherlandish painting. Dhanens studied art history at Ghent University at the Higher Institute of Art, where she earned a Ph.D in 1945. Her dissertation ...
, a sense of the "fragility of life or of memory itself".
Portrait
![Philip the good](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Philip_the_Good.jpg)
The man is positioned within an undefined narrow space and set against a flat black background. Typically for vanEyck, the head is large in relation to the torso. He is dressed in typically
Burgundian Burgundian can refer to any of the following:
*Someone or something from Burgundy.
*Burgundians, an East Germanic tribe, who first appear in history in South East Europe. Later Burgundians colonised the area of Gaul that is now known as Burgundy (F ...
fashion, with a red robe and a green wool
chaperon with a bourrelet and cornette hanging forward. The headdress is trimmed with fur, fastened with two buttons, and extends to the parapet.
His right hand might be holding the end of the cornette.
Neither the shape of his head nor his facial features correspond to contemporary standard types, let alone canons of ideal beauty. The sitter appears to be bald, although there are some faint traces of fair hair, leading Erwin Panofsky to conclude that his "countenance is as 'Nordic' as his dress is Burgundian."
[Panofsky, 82] Though he has neither eyebrows nor stubble, he does have eyelashes that are believed to have been added by a 19th-century restorer.
Van Eyck's cool observation of the man's narrow shoulders, pursed lips, and thin eyebrows extends to detailing the moisture on his blue eyes.
[Kemperdick, 19]
Unlike
Rogier van der Weyden, who paid especially close attention to detail in the rendering of his models' fingers, to vanEyck hands were often something of an afterthought. They are generically rendered, do not contain much detail and may have been a later workshop addition. Yet they are very similar to those of the sitter in his 1435 ''Portrait of
Baudouin de Lannoy
Baldwin van Lannoy, Lord of Molembais, nicknamed "Le Bègue" (The Stutterer; 1388 in Hénin-Beaumont – 1474 in Huppaye) was a Flemish statesman, and ambassador for Philip the Good at the court of Henry V of England.
Family
He was a member of ...
''. The man holds a scroll that might be a legal document, letter, or pamphlet. In his early portraits, vanEyck's sitters are often shown holding objects indicative of their profession.
[Pächt, 110] The scroll contains six lines of illegible writing. The abbreviations are more prominent and seem to be in Latin, but may be vernacular.
![Jan van Eyck - Baudouin de Lannoy](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Jan_van_Eyck_-_Baudouin_de_Lannoy.jpg)
Light falls from the left, leaving traces of shadow on the side of the man's face, a device commonly found in vanEyck's early portraits.
[Meiss, 137] He is youthful, and his face has a soft fleshiness achieved through shallow curves and flowing, harmonious brushstrokes, giving the appearance of a relaxed, warm, and open personality, which Meiss describes as evoking an almost "
Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...
esque warmth and sympathy".
The sitter is not handsome; he has a flattish face, a stubby yet pointed nose, and prominent cheekbones that might, according to Panofsky, belong to a "
Flemish
Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...
peasant".
[Panofsky, 88] Dhanens describes him as having an honest expression.
[Dhanens, 182]
A number of art historians have noted the apparent contradiction between the man's plain looks and enigmatic expression. Meiss describes him as "plain and rustic", and finds a resemblance between his rather generic face and a number of figures in the lower portions of the "Adoration of the Lamb" panel in the ''
Ghent Altarpiece''.
[Meiss, 144] Agreeing with Panofsky, he observes a "thoughtfulness on the high, wrinkled forehead, visionary force in the dreamy yet steady eyes,
nda formidable strength of passion in the wide, firm mouth". According to Panofsky, the man's face is not that of an intellectual, yet he detects a pensive and lonely nature, "the face of one who feels and produces rather than observes and dissects".
Inscriptions and identity of the sitter
![Léal Souvenir Inscriptions](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/L%C3%A9al_Souvenir_Inscriptions.jpg)
The parapet has three horizontal rows of inscriptions; on the upper and lower rows is smaller lettering that is often not visible in reproductions. In places, the Greek characters are unclear and have been subject to much speculation by art historians, not least due to vanEyck's sometimes erratic spelling and unusual spacing.
The top lettering is in chalk white and Greek script that reads
"TYΜ.ωΘΕΟC". The last character is deliberately concealed by a chip in the imitation stone, a touch described by Panofsky as a "terminal flourish".
This makes the meaning of the inscription difficult to discern. A general consensus among art historians is that the final character is a square C or
sigma
Sigma (; uppercase Σ, lowercase σ, lowercase in word-final position ς; grc-gre, σίγμα) is the eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 200. In general mathematics, uppercase Σ is used as ...
sign.
"TYΜ.ωΘΕΟC" was interpreted in 1857 by
Charles Eastlake
Charles Locke Eastlake (11 March 1836 – 20 November 1906) was a British architect and furniture designer.
His uncle, Sir Charles Lock Eastlake PRA (born in 1793), was a Keeper of the National Gallery, from 1843 to 1847, and from 1855 its fi ...
as "Timotheos", a proper name.
[Paviot, 214] Campbell points out that vanEyck "appears to have employed the Greek alphabet systematically", and always employed the square sigma ''C'' for the Latin "S", and a
majuscule
Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...
omega
Omega (; capital: Ω, lowercase: ω; Ancient Greek ὦ, later ὦ μέγα, Modern Greek ωμέγα) is the twenty-fourth and final letter in the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system/isopsephy (gematria), it has a value of 800. The wo ...
''ω'' (in the
uncial form) for the Latin "O".
The inscription may be meant to read "Honour God", or "Be Honoured, OGod", as written in the
passive imperative.
[Paviot, 215] Panofsky gives some consideration to the hypothesis that the final letter is a "
N", and that the lettering forms two words rather than one. In this interpretation, the letters spell TYΜω ΘΕΟN, meaning "Honour God". While this would be more straightforward than "Timotheus", he rejects the possibility. He writes that "the presence of a shorter horizontal line connecting with the slightly tapering top of the vertical stroke and completing it into a
Γ form ... evidently precludes a "
N".
[Panofsky, 80–81] Dhanens suggests the inscription can be read as "''Time Deum''" ("Fear God"), a known motto of the
Vilain family.
![TYΜ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/TY%CE%9C.%CF%89%CE%98%CE%95%CE%9FC.png)
Eastlake's translation is generally accepted. The possibility of it being a variant of "Timothy" has been discounted, as that word was not used in Northern Europe before the
Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
. There is no Germanic name that might imply a humanistic imitation of a Greek word,
[Panofsky, 81] so art historians have sought to identify the man from Greek history or legend. Although some have suggested certain
Athenian
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
and
Syrian
Syrians ( ar, سُورِيُّون, ''Sūriyyīn'') are an Eastern Mediterranean ethnic group indigenous to the Levant. They share common Levantine Semitic roots. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend of both indi ...
generals, these have been discounted as the sitter is not wearing military clothing.
[Panofsky, 82] Saint Timothy, first Bishop of
Ephesus
Ephesus (; grc-gre, Ἔφεσος, Éphesos; tr, Efes; may ultimately derive from hit, 𒀀𒉺𒊭, Apaša) was a city in ancient Greece on the coast of Ionia, southwest of present-day Selçuk in İzmir Province, Turkey. It was built in t ...
and an associate of
Saint Paul
Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...
, has been suggested but eliminated as the man is not dressed as a high cleric.
![DufayBinchois](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/DufayBinchois.jpg)
The larger middle inscription is in French, using a 12th-century script. It reads "
LEAL SOVVENIR" (''Loyal Remembrance'', or ''Faithful Souvenir''),
[Bauman, 35] and is painted to give the impression that it was carved into the parapet.
In 1927 Hippolyte Fierens Gevaert put forward
Timotheus of Miletus
Timotheus of Miletus ( grc, Τιμόθεος ὁ Μιλήσιος; c. 446 – 357 BC) was a Greek musician and dithyrambic poet, an exponent of the "new music." He added one or more strings to the lyre, whereby he incurred the displeasure of the S ...
, a Greek musician and
dithyrambic
The dithyramb (; grc, διθύραμβος, ''dithyrambos'') was an ancient Greek hymn sung and danced in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine and fertility; the term was also used as an epithet of the god. Plato, in ''The Laws'', while discussing ...
poet born 446. Gevaert held that the portrait was a commemoration of a court artist who had recently died and that the classical reference was intended to flatter his memory. Panofsky largely went with this position in 1949. He speculated that the sitter was the celebrated musician
Gilles Binchois
Gilles de Bins dit Binchois (also Binchoys; – 20 September 1460) was a Franco-Flemish composer of early Renaissance music. A central figure of the Burgundian School, Binchois and his colleague Guillaume Du Fay were deeply influenced by the ...
, by 1430 a
canon at
St. Donatian's Cathedral
St. Donatian's Cathedral ( nl, Sint-Donaaskathedraal) was a Roman Catholic cathedral in Bruges, Belgium. Located on the Burg, one of the main squares in the city,Dunford and Lee, p.174.McDonald, p.14.McDonald, p.25. it was the largest church in Bru ...
, Bruges.
Campbell is sceptical, disclaiming that the sitter "is not dressed as a cleric".
[Campbell, 220] Other theories include that the man was a Greek or
Lucchese merchant,
Henry the Navigator
''Dom'' Henrique of Portugal, Duke of Viseu (4 March 1394 – 13 November 1460), better known as Prince Henry the Navigator ( pt, Infante Dom Henrique, o Navegador), was a central figure in the early days of the Portuguese Empire and in the 15t ...
,
Jean deCroÿ or, less likely, that it is a self-portrait. Though there is much disagreement, it is probable that he was a native French speaker, and a notary, poet, or member of the ''Compagnie du Chapel Vert'' ("Society of the Green Hat") at
Tournai
Tournai or Tournay ( ; ; nl, Doornik ; pcd, Tornai; wa, Tornè ; la, Tornacum) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium. It lies southwest of Brussels on the river Scheldt. Tournai is part of Euromet ...
.
[Campbell, 220] Dhanens rejects the theory that the man was a musician on the basis that vanEyck would have made this explicit, portraying him holding a device or emblem clearly symbolising music. She concludes that he is an accountant or lawyer holding a legal or financial document.
[Dhanens, 184]
From the first two inscriptions, the panel is generally accepted as a
posthumous portrait. Roman tombstones often showed a representation of the deceased behind a parapet with a carved inscription, and vanEyck may have known of these from travels to France.
The lower inscription reads "Actu
an
d
mii.1432.10.die octobris.a.ioh
nne
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...
de Eyck" (''Finished in the year of our Lord 1432 on the 10th day of October by Jan vanEyck'').
Campbell observes that the phrasing of this extended signature is surprisingly reminiscent of
legalese
Legal writing involves the analysis of fact patterns and presentation of arguments in documents such as legal memoranda and briefs. One form of legal writing involves drafting a balanced analysis of a legal problem or issue. Another form of legal ...
, and that vanEyck seems to be reinforcing the idea that the man was a legal professional,
[Campbell, 222] who may have worked for the
Dukes of Burgundy.
[Borchert, 36] Jacques Paviot notes that it is written in the Gothic cursive script ''
bastarda'', then favoured by the legal profession.
In either case, although he is not grandly dressed and is probably a member of the middle class, he must have been highly regarded in Philip's court, given that such portraits rarely depicted non-nobles.
Condition
The panel consists of a single oak board, cut vertically down close to the painted surface. It has a small unpainted area at the upper left. The support's encasing was probably changed in the 19th century; today four of the eight supports are fixed to the edges of the interior borders, forming inner
mouldings. The other four act as inner pins. The varnish is severely degraded, with key areas of paint and ground either removed or overpainted.
Infrared photography of the reverse reveals traces of short vertical
hatching and underdrawings, but no hint as to the identity of the sitter. Its ground is mostly chalk-based; the pigments are predominantly blacks, red lake, and blues. The final portrait differs in many ways from the underdrawing – the fingers are shorter, the right thumb and the parapet are lower, and the right arm once extended over a larger area. In the final portrait, the ear is elevated, and the scroll occupies a larger pictorial space. Analysis of the pigment shows that the flesh of his face is painted with whites and
vermilion
Vermilion (sometimes vermillion) is a color, color family, and pigment most often made, since ancient history, antiquity until the 19th century, from the powdered mineral cinnabar (a form of mercury sulfide, which is toxic) and its correspondi ...
, and traced with greys, blacks, blues, and some
ultramarine
Ultramarine is a deep blue color pigment which was originally made by grinding lapis lazuli into a powder. The name comes from the Latin ''ultramarinus'', literally 'beyond the sea', because the pigment was imported into Europe from mines in Afgh ...
over a red-lake glaze.
[Campbell, 218]
The portrait is not particularly well preserved. There are yellowish layers of glaze over the face, probably later additions. The varnishes have degraded and lost their original colours. The panel has undergone a number of detrimental retouchings. In some instances, these have altered the sitter's appearance, most especially the removal of strands of fair hair below the chaperon. It has sustained structural damage, especially to the marble on the reverse. The National Gallery repaired some "slight injuries" when it came into their possession in 1857. Campbell notes a number of efforts by later restorers were imperfect and "rather disfiguring", including touchings to the man's nostrils and eyelashes, and the tip of his nose. There is a yellowish glaze over the eyes that seems to be either damage or overpaint. The panel is discoloured overall and suffers from aged and degenerated varnishes that make the original pigments hard to discern.
Provenance
![Follower of Jan van Eyck Marco Barbarigo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Follower_of_Jan_van_Eyck_Marco_Barbarigo.jpg)
The painting was widely copied and imitated during the 15thcentury. Near-contemporary copper reproductions are known from
Bergamo
Bergamo (; lmo, Bèrghem ; from the proto- Germanic elements *''berg +*heim'', the "mountain home") is a city in the alpine Lombardy region of northern Italy, approximately northeast of Milan, and about from Switzerland, the alpine lakes Como ...
and
Turin
Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...
.
Petrus Christus borrowed the illusionistic carving on the parapet for his 1446 ''
Portrait of a Carthusian
''Portrait of a Carthusian'' is a painting in oils on oak Panel painting, panel by the Early Netherlandish painter Petrus Christus in 1446. The work is part of the Jules Bache Collection housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
...
''. A 1449–1450 portrait of
Marco Barbarigo
Marco Barbarigo (c. 1413 – August 14, 1486) was the 73rd Doge of Venice from 1485 until 1486. His nomination took place on a new staircase in the courtyard of the Doge's Palace, on an axis with the Campanile of St. Mark and the Porta della Cart ...
attributed to a follower of vanEyck is also heavily indebted to ''Léal Souvenir'' in that it is also unusually tall and narrow, with a large space above the sitter's head.
The painting is first recorded in the notes of
Charles Eastlake
Charles Locke Eastlake (11 March 1836 – 20 November 1906) was a British architect and furniture designer.
His uncle, Sir Charles Lock Eastlake PRA (born in 1793), was a Keeper of the National Gallery, from 1843 to 1847, and from 1855 its fi ...
, the National Gallery's collector and later director, in 1857, the year it was acquired. He mentions that it had been in the possession of the Scottish landscape painter Karl Ross (1816–1858) "before 1854". Like many of vanEyck's works and those of the Early Netherlandish painters in general, the painting's
provenance
Provenance (from the French ''provenir'', 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody or location of a historical object. The term was originally mostly used in relation to works of art but is now used in similar senses i ...
is murky before the 19thcentury. When the National Gallery was verifying attribution, the two copper reproductions were noted. The first was found by Eastlake in the collection of the Lochis family of Bergamo in Italy, the second in Turin, belonging to Count Castellane Harrach and described as smaller than the original, and "very weak". Both are now lost.
Ink markings on the marble reverse show a small cross that may record a merchant's mark or emblem. Although it is incomplete and no identification has been made,
W.H.J. Weale detected the mark of "an early Italian, probably Venetian owner".
[Weale, 109] An early provenance in Italy would not imply that the man came from that country; vanEyck's works were often purchased by collectors from that region.
References
Notes
Sources
* Bauman, Guy. "Early Flemish Portraits 1425–1525". ''The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin'', volume43, No.4, Spring, 1986
*
Borchert, Till-Holger. ''Van Eyck''. London: Taschen, 2008.
*
Campbell, Lorne. ''The Fifteenth-Century Netherlandish Paintings''. London: National Gallery, 1998.
* Dhanens, Elisabeth. ''Hubert and Jan vanEyck''. New York: Tabard Press, 1980.
*
Harbison, Craig. ''Jan van Eyck, The Play of Realism''. London: Reaktion Books, 1991.
* Jones, Susan Frances. ''Van Eyck to Gossaert''. London: National Gallery, 2011.
* Kemperdick, Stephan. ''The Early Portrait, from the Collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein and the Kunstmuseum Basel''. Munich: Prestel, 2006.
* Meiss, Millard. "'Nicholas Albergati' and the Chronology of Jan van Eyck's Portraits". ''Burlington Magazine'', volume94, No.590, May 1952
* Pächt, Otto. ''Van Eyck and the Founders of Early Netherlandish Painting''. 1999. London: Harvey Miller Publishers.
*
Panofsky, Erwin. "Who Is Jan van Eyck's 'Tymotheos'?". ''Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes'', volume12, 1949
* Paviot, Jacques. "The Sitter for Jan van Eyck's 'Leal Sovvenir". ''Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes'', volume58, 1995
*
Smith, Jeffrey Chipps. ''The Northern Renaissance''. London: Phaidon Press, 2004.
* Upton, Joel Morgan. ''Petrus Christus: His Place in Fifteenth-Century Flemish painting''. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989
*
Weale, W. H. J. ''Hubert and John Van Eyck, their life and work''. London: J. Lane Company, 1908
* Wood, Wendy. "A new identification of the sitter in Jan van Eyck's Tymotheus portrait". ''The Art Bulletin'', volume60, No.4, December 1978
External links
National Gallery catalogue entry
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leal Souvenir
1430s paintings
15th-century portraits
Portraits by Jan van Eyck