Vyt only acquired it later, in time to have his own and his wife's
portraits added on the shutters.]

Hubert van Eyck died in 1426, and the picture was finished by his
younger brother John, of whose life, though more is known than of
Hubert's, we need not here repeat details. Many of his pictures still
exist, and the most delightful of them for us are his portraits. He
was not the first man to paint good portraits, but few artists have
ever painted better likenesses. It seems evident that the people in
his pictures are 'as like as they can stare,' with no wrinkle or scratch
left out. Portraits in earlier days than these were seldom painted
for their own sake alone. A pious man who wanted to present an
altar-piece or a stained-glass window to a church would modestly have
his own image introduced in a corner. By degrees such portraits grew
in size and scale, and the neighbouring saints diminished, till at
last the saints were left out and the portrait stood alone. Then it
came about that such a picture was hung in its owner's house rather
than in a church. One of the best portraits John van Eyck ever painted
is at Bruges--the likeness of his wife. The panel was discovered about
fifty years ago in the market-place of Bruges, where an old woman was
using the back of it to skin eels on; but so soundly had the picture
been painted that even this ill-usage did not ruin it. The lady was
a very plain Flemish woman with no beauty of feature or expression,
but John has revealed her character so vividly that to look at her
likeness is to know her. It is indeed a long leap from the Richard
II. of fifty years before, with its representation of the outline of
a youth, to this ample realization of a mature woman's character.

John lived till 1441, and had some pupils and many imitators. One of
these, Roger van der Weyden by name, spread his influence far and wide