Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?)

For another portrait of a man wearing a red chaperon painted by Van Eyck, see Portrait of Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini.
Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?), 25.5 × 19cm, 1433. National Gallery, London. "AlC IXH XAN" and "JOHES DE EYCK ME FECIT ANO MCCCC.33. 21. OCTOBRIS" are painted on the frame to resemble carving.

Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?)[1] (also Portrait of a Man in a Turban or Portrait of a Man in a Red Turban) is an oil painting by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck, from 1433. The inscription at the top of the panel, Als Ich Can (intended as "as I/Eyck can") was a common autograph for van Eyck, but here is unusually large and prominent. This fact, along with the man's unusually direct and confrontational gaze, have been taken as an indication that the work is a self-portrait.

Probably his Portrait of Margaret van Eyck was a pendant, although her only known portrait is both dated 1439 and larger.[2] It has been proposed that van Eyck created the portrait to store in his workshop so that he could use it to display his abilities (and social status, given the fine clothes evident in the portrait) to potential clients. However, his reputation was such in 1433 that he was already highly sought after for commissioned work.[2]

The panel has been in the National Gallery, London, since 1851, and it has been in England since its acquisition by Thomas Howard, 14th Earl of Arundel, probably during his exile in Antwerp from 1642 to 1644.[a]

  1. ^ The title now used by the National Gallery; see: Campbell (1998), 212–17
  2. ^ a b Hall (2014), 43


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