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Authors: Noah Charney
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association, if not actively: with the ear of the duke, van Eyck was influential behind the scenes. His power and income also permitted him a financial independence that none of his fellow artists could boast. Free of the often Draconian restrictions of the local painters’ guild (in fact the court painter was not permitted to work on the open market and could only accept a commission with the duke’s blessing), van Eyck was as powerful an artist, politically, personally, and creatively, as any had ever been. Other painters held the coveted title of valet de chambre in France and Burgundy, including Melchior Broederlam, Francois Clouet, Paul Limbourg, Claus Sluter, and even a probable relative of Jan’s, by the name of Barthelemy d’Eyck. In Italy, Raphael would play a similar role, the first prominent Italian painter to act as courtier and political advisor, as well as an artist. Of the French and Burgundian valets de chambre , Jan van Eyck was the most famous, the best paid, the dearest to his master, and the most active politically.
Van Eyck worked for Philip the Good as an ambassador and as a secret agent. Though little concrete documentary evidence has come to light, it is known from contemporary sources that Jan traveled on secret missions on behalf of the duke. Such is the nature of secret activities—the more successful they are, the less trace they leave. Most likely these missions involved confidential dealings of a political or economic nature. References to these activities in contemporary documents describe them as “secret” and “special,” and note his significant remuneration for them, yet say little more. For example, a document from the winter of 1440 states that van Eyck delivered “certain panels and other secret items” to the duke, and he was reimbursed for expenses incurred in the acquisition of these “secret items” in January 1441. As an artist who might be sent to paint at various rival courts, van Eyck was almost certainly also a spy.
There are a number of Renaissance artists for whom we have fleeting archival evidence of their employment as secret agents on behalf of the court for which they worked. Famous artists or writers tipped as spies include poet Geoffrey Chaucer, Raphael, Benvenuto Cellini, Gentile Bellini, Rosso Fiorentino, playwright Christopher Marlowe, Albrecht
Dürer (who in 1521 made pilgrimage to see The Ghent Altarpiece and described it as a “very splendid, deeply reasoned painting”), the magician John Dee, and the philosopher Giordano Bruno. The fact that dukes and princes would loan artists to rival courts to pursue artistic commissions, an engagement portrait for instance, could be used as an excuse to place a trusted courtier deep inside an enemy’s headquarters. We know that the playwright Marlowe was sent to spy for England in Venice because of a document signed by Queen Elizabeth I preserved in Cambridge. The letter asks Marlowe’s Cambridge tutors to excuse his absence from classes, as he was abroad engaged in secret work for the queen. Gentile Bellini was sent by the Venetian Republic as a sort of diplomatic loan to the Turkish sultan Mehmet II. Bellini befriended the sultan, painting his portrait (which still exists) and a number of other works while in Istanbul. But Bellini was certainly acting as a spy as well, sent during the brief hiatus in the wars between Venice and the Ottomans.
So what was Jan van Eyck up to? We know that in 1425 he was sent to nearby Bruges and Lille on the first of his recorded secret missions. In July 1426 and again from August until 27 October of that same year, he was abroad engaged in secret activity, at an unknown location referred to in contemporary documents as “certain distant lands.” Court treasury records indicate that he was reimbursed for expenses incurred on a “secret and distant journey.” Some scholars believe that he was sent to the Holy Land, because of the uncanny accuracy of the landscape view of
Van Eyck worked for Philip the Good as an ambassador and as a secret agent. Though little concrete documentary evidence has come to light, it is known from contemporary sources that Jan traveled on secret missions on behalf of the duke. Such is the nature of secret activities—the more successful they are, the less trace they leave. Most likely these missions involved confidential dealings of a political or economic nature. References to these activities in contemporary documents describe them as “secret” and “special,” and note his significant remuneration for them, yet say little more. For example, a document from the winter of 1440 states that van Eyck delivered “certain panels and other secret items” to the duke, and he was reimbursed for expenses incurred in the acquisition of these “secret items” in January 1441. As an artist who might be sent to paint at various rival courts, van Eyck was almost certainly also a spy.
There are a number of Renaissance artists for whom we have fleeting archival evidence of their employment as secret agents on behalf of the court for which they worked. Famous artists or writers tipped as spies include poet Geoffrey Chaucer, Raphael, Benvenuto Cellini, Gentile Bellini, Rosso Fiorentino, playwright Christopher Marlowe, Albrecht
Dürer (who in 1521 made pilgrimage to see The Ghent Altarpiece and described it as a “very splendid, deeply reasoned painting”), the magician John Dee, and the philosopher Giordano Bruno. The fact that dukes and princes would loan artists to rival courts to pursue artistic commissions, an engagement portrait for instance, could be used as an excuse to place a trusted courtier deep inside an enemy’s headquarters. We know that the playwright Marlowe was sent to spy for England in Venice because of a document signed by Queen Elizabeth I preserved in Cambridge. The letter asks Marlowe’s Cambridge tutors to excuse his absence from classes, as he was abroad engaged in secret work for the queen. Gentile Bellini was sent by the Venetian Republic as a sort of diplomatic loan to the Turkish sultan Mehmet II. Bellini befriended the sultan, painting his portrait (which still exists) and a number of other works while in Istanbul. But Bellini was certainly acting as a spy as well, sent during the brief hiatus in the wars between Venice and the Ottomans.
So what was Jan van Eyck up to? We know that in 1425 he was sent to nearby Bruges and Lille on the first of his recorded secret missions. In July 1426 and again from August until 27 October of that same year, he was abroad engaged in secret activity, at an unknown location referred to in contemporary documents as “certain distant lands.” Court treasury records indicate that he was reimbursed for expenses incurred on a “secret and distant journey.” Some scholars believe that he was sent to the Holy Land, because of the uncanny accuracy of the landscape view of
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