In Jan van Eyck’s Van der Paele Virgin the figure reflected in St George’s shield did not receive any scholarly attention until the mid-twentieth century. Taken to be Van Eyck’s self-portrait, the reflection is usually seen as analogous to its counterpart in the Arnolfini Portrait despite significant differences between the two images. This talk investigates the particularity of Van Eyck’s self-representation in the Van der Paele Virgin in terms of its function and meaning. Through consideration of the surface on which the reflection is depicted, the saint with whom it is associated, and the setting in which the painting was located and experienced, it will be argued that Van Eyck depicted himself in a highly self-conscious manner, closely linked both to his identity as a painter and to the desire, shared with his patron, for remembrance after death.
Douglas Brine is an Assistant Professor at Trinity University, where he has taught since 2009. He undertook his undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at The Courtauld, and has since held postdoctoral fellowships at The Courtauld Research Forum and the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. He has recently published the book of his thesis, Pious Memories. The Wall-Mounted Memorial in the Burgundian Netherlands, Studies in Netherlandish Art and Cultural History (Boston/Leiden: Brill, 2015); and his article in the Art Bulletin on Jan van Eyck, Canon Joris van der Paele and the Art of Commemoration won the 2015 Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize awarded by the College Art Association.