iNational GalleryWest End
Van Eyck: The Portraits
For the first time in history, all of Jan van Eyck's surviving painted portraits brought together in one exhibition.
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Preview: written before the show opened
The Arnolfini Portrait has left the National Gallery only once in over 100 years. This winter it stays put and gets company: Portrait of a Man (Giovanni? Arnolfini), lent by Berlin's Gemäldegalerie, hangs beside it for the first time.
All nine of van Eyck's painted portraits are together for the first time, about half his surviving work. Margaret, the Artist's Wife (1439), lent by Bruges, is the first known portrait of a woman outside the aristocracy. Vienna lends both its van Eycks, and its Portrait of an Elderly Man meets the Dresden drawing made for it. The Arnolfini man gets two portraits; your LinkedIn headshot is still cropped from a wedding.
Tickets are £18 with an audio guide; under-18s and members go free. The members' preview on 20 November is sold out.
Editor's pick
The Arnolfini Portrait hangs beside Berlin's portrait of the same man, and Margaret, the painter's wife, has come from Bruges. All nine of van Eyck's surviving painted portraits, together for the first time.
Look for
Two portraits of the Arnolfini man
The Gallery's 1434 Arnolfini Portrait hangs beside the Berlin portrait of what is thought to be the same sitter, shown together for the first time.
Margaret, the Artist's Wife
Van Eyck's wife in a red dress and white head covering, lent by the Groeningemuseum in Bruges and hung with the Gallery's newly conserved 1433 man's portrait.
The Elderly Man and his drawing
Vienna's Portrait of an Elderly Man is reunited with the Dresden silverpoint study for it, van Eyck's only surviving drawing.
Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?)
The newly conserved 1433 panel of a man in a flamboyant red hat, thought to be van Eyck himself, shown with his wife's portrait.
Good for
- First-Timers
- Nerding Out
- Out-Of-Town Guests
With kids
Under-18s go free.
Free in the same building
- East Wing: 1700–1900From Turner and Constable to Monet, Renoir, Seurat, and Van Gogh's Sunflowers: Romanticism through Post-Impressionism.
- North Wing: 1600–1700Baroque masters in full force: Rembrandt, Rubens, Caravaggio, Velázquez, and Vermeer across the seventeenth century.
- Sainsbury Wing: 1250–1500Medieval and Early Renaissance masterpieces (Botticelli, van Eyck, Piero della Francesca) in the gallery's landmark wing.
- West Wing: 1500–1600Italian High Renaissance at its peak (Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian) alongside German and Flemish masters.
Also at National Gallery
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Image credits
9
- Van Eyck: The PortraitsCourtesy of National Gallery
- Gillian Wearing: Spiritual FamilyGillian Wearing ('Me as Warhol in Drag with Scar'), by Gillian Wearing, 2010, NPG P2104 © Gillian Wearing, courtesy Maureen Paley, London, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York and Regen Projects, Los Angeles
- Winston Taylor Photo Portrait Prize 2026Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery
- Tim Walker's Fairyland: Love and LegendsCourtesy of National Portrait Gallery
- National GalleryCarlos Delgado / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- National Portrait GalleryIstvánka / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- London Transport MuseumColin Park / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Churchill War RoomsJenny Poole / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
- Royal Academy of ArtsYair Haklai / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0