Barthélemy Eyck

Barthélemy d'Eyck, van Eyck or d' Eyck (c. 1420 – after 1470), was an Early Netherlandish artist who worked in France and probably in Burgundy as a painter and manuscript illuminator. He was active between about 1440 to about 1469. Although no surviving works can be certainly documented as his, he was praised by contemporary authors as a leading artist of the day, and a number of important works are generally accepted as his. In particular, Barthélemy has been accepted by most experts as the artists formerly known as the Master of the Aix Annunciation for paintings, and the Master of René of Anjou for illuminated manuscripts. He is thought by many to be the Master of the Shadows responsible for parts of the calendar of the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry.

It is likely that he was related to Jan van Eyck but this cannot be documented. His stepfather was a cloth-merchant who followed René of Anjou to Naples and the South of France. His mother died in 1460, and was described as "Ydria Exters d'Allemagne" – that is "of Germany", which might well have included all the Netherlands as far as the Provencals were concerned. Jan van Eyck's brother, Lambert, seems also to have worked in Provence after Jan's death.

Some authorities have proposed, on stylistic grounds as well as the likely family relationship, that Barthélemy trained in the workshop of Jan van Eyck, and worked in the 1430s on the Milan-Turin Hours, a famous and important illuminated manuscript, where a number of different painting "hands" have been distinguished. Much of this only survives in black-and-white photographs after its destruction in a fire. A painter called only "Barthélemy" is documented as working in Dijon for Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy in 1440; this may well be him. René of Anjou, who was to become Barthélemy's major patron, had been held prisoner there by Philip. By 1444 Barthélemy d'Eyck was in Aix-en-Provence in the South of France presumably working with the leading French painter Enguerrand Quarton as they witnessed a legal document together.

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