Year c. 1431 Artist Jan van Eyck Media Paint, Oil paint | Medium Oil on canvas Created 1431–1432 | |
 | ||
Dimensions 34 cm × 27.5 cm (13 in × 10.8 in) Location Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna Periods Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, Northern Renaissance, Renaissance Similar Jan van Eyck artwork, Artwork at Kunsthistorisches Museum, Northern Renaissance artwork | ||
The Portrait of Cardinal Niccolò Albergati is a painting by early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck, dating to around 1431 and currently housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna, Austria.
Niccolò Albergati was a diplomat working under Pope Martin V. During a peace congress in Antwerp, he met van Eyck, who portrayed him in a drawing in which the artist added notes on the colors in order to execute a later painting portrait. The drawing is now in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen of Dresden, Germany.
The cardinal is portrayed from three-quarters, as was usual in Flemish painting since as early as the 1430s, on a dark background which enhances the figure, which is instead subject to a bright light source. As common in van Eyck's work, attention to detail is maximum, thanks to his technique using successive layers of colors diluted with oil, which allowed him deep effects of transparency and lucidity. Comparison with the preparatory drawing shows that van Eyck changed several realistic details, such as the depth of the shoulders, the lower curve of the nose, the depth of the mouth and mainly the size of the ear, perhaps to strengthen the impression of seniority and, consequently, of authority of the cardinal.