Saint Barbara (van Eyck)

Saint Barbara is a small 1437 drawing on oak panel, signed and dated 1437 by the Netherlandish artist Jan van Eyck.

The panel shows Saint Barbara imprisoned in a tower by her pagan father to preserve her from the outside world, especially from suitors he did not approve of.

[2] The panel was completed with brush strokes, a stylus, silverpoint, ink, oil and black pigment on a chalk ground.

[5] She became a popular subject for artists of van Eyck's generation; another notable contemporary depiction is Robert Campin's 1438 Werl Triptych.

[6] The areas of the surface containing pigment, including portions of the sky and the window traceries, may have been later additions, with the early 17th-century Flemish painter Karel van Mander sometimes attributed.

[2] Barbara is shown seated, reading a book in front of a large Gothic cathedral still in the process of being built, with many workmen visible on the ground carrying stone and on various parts of the tower.

Van Eyck had earlier depicted the cathedral as well as a view of Cologne in the Adoration of the Lamb panel of the Ghent Altarpiece.

According to the art historian Simone Ferrari, "with its detailed and complex of small scenes, the work seems to foreshadow the paintings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder".