Léal Souvenir
The sitter has not been identified, but his highly individual features suggest a historical person rather than the hypothetical ideal usual at the time in northern Renaissance portraiture; his slight and unassuming torso is contrasted with a sophisticated facial expression.
[2] Van Eyck did not have full command of either classical Greek or Latin and made errors, so readings by modern scholars vary.
Panofsky drew the same conclusion, eliminating other Greeks bearing the name Timothy; they were of religious or military background, professions that do not match the civilian dress of the sitter.
[5] More recent research focuses on the legalistic wording in one of the inscriptions, suggesting to some that he was in some way connected to the legal profession, or an employee of Philip the Good.
He is dressed in typically Burgundian fashion, with a red robe and a green wool chaperon with a bourrelet and cornette hanging forward.
The sitter appears to be bald, although there are some faint traces of fair hair, leading Erwin Panofsky to conclude that his "countenance is as 'Nordic' as his dress is Burgundian.
[16] Van Eyck's cool observation of the man's narrow shoulders, pursed lips, and thin eyebrows extends to detailing the moisture on his blue eyes.
[4] Light falls from the left, leaving traces of shadow on the side of the man's face, a device commonly found in van Eyck's early portraits.
[20] He is youthful, and his face has a soft fleshiness achieved through shallow curves and flowing, harmonious brushstrokes, giving the appearance of a relaxed, warm, and open personality, which Meiss describes as evoking an almost "Rembrandtesque warmth and sympathy".
Meiss describes him as "plain and rustic", and finds a resemblance between his rather generic face and a number of figures in the lower portions of the "Adoration of the Lamb" panel in the Ghent Altarpiece.
[22] Agreeing with Panofsky, he observes a "thoughtfulness on the high, wrinkled forehead, visionary force in the dreamy yet steady eyes, [and] a formidable strength of passion in the wide, firm mouth".
In places, the Greek characters are unclear and have been subject to much speculation by art historians, not least due to van Eyck's sometimes erratic spelling and unusual spacing.
He writes that "the presence of a shorter horizontal line connecting with the slightly tapering top of the vertical stroke and completing it into a Γ form ... evidently precludes a "N".
Gevaert held that the portrait was a commemoration of a court artist who had recently died and that the classical reference was intended to flatter his memory.
Though there is much disagreement, it is probable that he was a native French speaker, and a notary, poet, or member of the Compagnie du Chapel Vert ("Society of the Green Hat") at Tournai.
[32] Dhanens rejects the theory that the man was a musician on the basis that van Eyck would have made this explicit, portraying him holding a device or emblem clearly symbolising music.
[30] Campbell observes that the phrasing of this extended signature is surprisingly reminiscent of legalese, and that van Eyck seems to be reinforcing the idea that the man was a legal professional,[23] who may have worked for the Dukes of Burgundy.
[4] In either case, although he is not grandly dressed and is probably a member of the middle class, he must have been highly regarded in Philip's court, given that such portraits rarely depicted non-nobles.
The final portrait differs in many ways from the underdrawing – the fingers are shorter, the right thumb and the parapet are lower, and the right arm once extended over a larger area.
Analysis of the pigment shows that the flesh of his face is painted with whites and vermilion, and traced with greys, blacks, blues, and some ultramarine over a red-lake glaze.
Campbell notes a number of efforts by later restorers were imperfect and "rather disfiguring", including touchings to the man's nostrils and eyelashes, and the tip of his nose.
[33] A c. 1449–50 portrait of the Venetian Doge Marco Barbarigo attributed to a follower of van Eyck is also heavily indebted to Léal Souvenir in that it is also unusually tall and narrow, with a large space above the sitter's head.
The first was found by Eastlake in the collection of the Lochis family of Bergamo in Italy, the second in Turin, belonging to Count Castellane Harrach is described as smaller than the original and "very weak".
