Robert Campin

They are each assumed to be wings of triptychs or polyptychs, and are the Virgin and Child with a Firescreen now in London, a panel fragment with the Thief on the Cross in Frankfurt, and the Brussels version of the Mérode Altarpiece.

Campin first appears as settled in Tournai from the archives of 1405–06, as a free master of the guild of goldsmiths and painters, and there has been a lot of speculation about his origin and birthplace which is actually unknown, although he is sometimes listed as having been born in Valenciennes.

[3][4] A short time after the verdict Campin's apprentices Rogier van der Weyden and Jacques Daret were accepted as masters into the guild of painters.

Although heavily indebted to late 14th-century manuscript illumination aesthetics, Campin displayed greater powers of realistic observation than any other painter before him.

Campin used the new technique to convey strong, rounded characters by modelling light and shade in compositions of complex perspectives.

For a long time it was thought that Jan van Eyck was the first painter to make full use of the innovations apparent in manuscript illumination in panel painting.

By the end of the 19th century it became clear, however, that Van Eyck was the contemporary of an artist who painted a number of works, including the Mérode Altarpiece.

The argument turns around a paper mentioning two pupils entering his studio in 1427 – Jacques Daret and Rogelet de la Pasture.

[citation needed] The tightest definition of the works from his own hand includes only the "Flémalle" panels, a 'Nativity at Dijon, a Crucified Thief (fragment of a Crucifixion) in Frankfurt, two portraits of a man and woman in London (of around 1430), and perhaps the Seilern Triptych.

After this, he painted the Marriage of the Virgin (Museo del Prado, Madrid) and Nativity (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon) around 1420–1425.

Several works attributed to Robert Campin may be seen in the Hermitage, including diptych panels depicting The Holy Trinity and The Virgin and Child.

Campin also collaborated with other artists, e.g. with Jean Delemer in creating (presumably painting) two wooden sculptures of the Annunciation currently in the Church of Saint Quentin, Tournai.