Robert Campin

Robert Campin (c. 1378–1444) is sometimes said to have been born in Valenciennes, but is first documented in 1405–06 as a free master of the guild of goldsmiths and painters in Tournai, where he became the leading painter for some thirty years. He ran a large, profitable workshop whose apprentices included Rogier van der Weyden and Jacques Daret, and he died in Tournai in 1444. With Jan van Eyck, whom he is recorded as meeting in 1427, he initiated early Netherlandish painting. He was one of the first to use oil-based colour in place of egg tempera, and his figures show a closer observation of reality than any earlier painter's. No painting is securely documented as his, and he is now usually identified with the anonymous Master of Flémalle. His best-known work is the Mérode Altarpiece of about 1425–28, a triptych for private use with the Annunciation set in a well-kept Flemish middle-class home. Here: Mérode Altarpiece.