Van Eyck’s portraits at the National Gallery London

Van Eyck: The Portraits, at Trafalgar Square

The National Gallery presents « Van Eyck: The Portraits » from Saturday 21 November 2026 to Sunday 11 April 2027, in its Trafalgar Square building in the heart of London. The main entrance is through the Sainsbury Wing. The gallery’s press release is signed by curator Emma Capron and quotes the director, Sir Gabriele Finaldi. According to the specialist press, this is the first exhibition devoted entirely to the artist’s portraits. This article calls it « Van Eyck’s portraits » for readability.

Highlights

• Ten portraits, nine paintings and one drawing, according to the gallery’s press release.
• Around half of the roughly twenty surviving autograph paintings by Van Eyck.
• The gallery’s permanent collection stays free: only the exhibition is paid.

Guided tours sold by third-party operators are another way to see the museum. The listing below is one example. It covers a route through the collection’s most important paintings. It doesn’t mention the Van Eyck exhibition and doesn’t say whether the exhibition ticket is included, so read the full offer before you book.

A rare painter and a new idea

Jan van Eyck was born around 1390 in Maaseik, near Maastricht, and died in Bruges in 1441, according to the notice from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Only about twenty autograph paintings survive, which makes every gathering of them exceptional. The National Gallery holds several, including the double portrait of the Arnolfini couple, one of its best-known paintings.

The heart of the exhibition is a thesis put forward by curator Emma Capron: the portrait took full shape in the 1430s. Earlier images, stylised, with kneeling donors or funeral effigies, hardly let you recognise an individual. Van Eyck painted the face of one specific man, with his features, his gaze and his inscriptions. Historians tend to qualify the idea of an « invention »: the individual portrait existed before him. What changes is the direct observation of the sitter, and the way the portrait becomes a work in its own right.

The clientele changes too. The sitters aren’t princes but merchants, goldsmiths and the artist’s close circle. The portrait of Jan de Leeuw, painted in 1436 and kept in Vienna, shows a Bruges goldsmith presenting a ring, according to the Vienna museum’s notice. These paintings say something about the city: a rising urban middle class that chose to be painted with its trade in view.

Highlights

• Sitters from trade and craft, not only from the court.
• Painted inscriptions, sometimes dated, in Latin and Greek.
• A recognised autograph drawing, the only one generally accepted as the artist’s, according to the Morgan Library & Museum.

Getting to the gallery and what to bring

The building is on Trafalgar Square. The main entrance is in the Sainsbury Wing. The gallery’s visit plan doesn’t mention any Underground station: for directions, use the Transport for London journey planner or a navigation app from your accommodation.

The building opens every day from 10am to 6pm, with late opening on Fridays until 9pm. It is closed on 24, 25 and 26 December, and on 1 January. Opening hours specific to the exhibition haven’t been published. Some rooms are closed for works, and some paintings have been moved, so the plan recommends checking the collection search before your visit.

The gallery asks visitors to bring as little as possible. Every door has metal detector gates, and bags and rucksacks are checked. The cloakroom accepts bags up to 56 x 25 x 45 cm. The page says wheeled luggage, including cabin bags, isn’t admitted, without specifying whether the ban applies to the cloakroom or to the galleries: ask at the front desk before you turn up with a suitcase.

Visiting from abroad: the ETA

If you’re visiting from outside the UK, you’ll need an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA). The UK government website gives the fee as £20 and notes that visitors from Europe generally need an ETA rather than a visa. The page we checked doesn’t say when the £20 fee takes effect. Our guide to the ETA before London covers the application, and is worth reading before you book your flight.

The points still open

The National Gallery writes « probably » about the Arnolfini couple, and the Berlin museum, which lends the portrait in the red chaperon, describes a painting « generally considered » to show the same merchant, without « ultimate certainty ». Linking the two faces is therefore a well-argued hypothesis, not proof. Both museums say so themselves.

The Léal Souvenir, held in London, carries a Greek inscription, TUM OTHEOS, whose meaning the gallery admits is uncertain. Readings vary: a proper name, Tymotheos, according to an old proposal, or « then God », the version the museum adopts. The museum adds that it doesn’t know who the man is or why he holds a scroll. A minority reading, from a 1979 article, sees an allusion to a tomb and to the Battle of Othée, but it rests on a disputed reading of the last letter.

The Dresden drawing was long linked to Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, a Carthusian from Bologna. That identification is now considered unlikely, because the sitter wears lay clothing. The Morgan Library & Museum presents him as an anonymous scholar, and the institutions don’t all date the work in exactly the same way.

For the NG222 portrait, the museum writes « almost certainly »: the face is almost certainly Van Eyck’s own. An Amsterdam inventory from 1655 already described it as a self-portrait by the artist’s hand. The background, now black, was probably blue originally: that black is almost certainly a later overpaint. A strong attribution isn’t a certainty, and the gallery words it with care.

Half a day or a full day

If the exhibition is your only reason to visit, half a day is enough. For a fuller day, here is one possible plan, to adapt to your own timings and slots.

Morning: get in at opening

Arrive at 10am with your free booked ticket. Bag checks are systematic, so leave large bags in the cloakroom, which accepts bags up to 56 x 25 x 45 cm. Keep in mind that works may close some rooms of the collection.

Midday: the exhibition

Allow at least an hour and a half for the ten portraits and their labels. This is an estimate, not an official duration, but it leaves time to compare the faces, the inscriptions and the frames, which are at the heart of the show.

Afternoon: the collection and another exhibition

The permanent collection stays free. The gallery is also showing Renoir and Love in the Sainsbury Wing until 31 January 2027, with tickets from £20 to £25 depending on the day, and free entry for under-18s. Its « Pay What You Wish » offer applies to the Renoir exhibition, on Fridays: it doesn’t apply to Van Eyck. Don’t mix up the two.

Further afield: Bruges

The portrait of Margaret, the artist’s wife, dated 1439, belongs to the Groeningemuseum in Bruges, the city where Van Eyck worked. It travels to London for the exhibition: if you hope to see it back in Bruges, check where it is on the day you plan to visit. If your stay overlaps the start of November, our guide to free Bonfire Night fireworks rounds off this route.