Rogier van der Weyden

Rogier van der Weyden or Roger de la Pasture (1399/1400 -1464) was an early Flemish painter. His surviving works consist mainly of religious triptychs, altarpieces and commissioned portraits. He was highly successful and internationally famous in his lifetime. From 1436 onwards he held the title of ‘painter to the town of Brussels’, a very prestigious post because Brussels was at that time the most important residence of the Dukes of Burgundy. He worked from life models, yet he often idealized certain elements of his models’ facial features; they are typically statuesque, especially in his triptychs. Van der Weyden used an unusually broad range of colours and varied tones in his finest works; the same tone is not repeated in any other area of the canvas, even the whites are varied.