Madonna of Chancellor Rolin

A wide range of well detailed palaces, churches, an island, a towered bridge, hills and fields is portrayed, subject to a uniform light.

The small garden with many flowers identifiable (including lilies, irises, paeonies and roses), visible just outside the columns, symbolizes Mary's virtues.

Artists like to oppose the symbolic birds, the dichotomy between good and evil: Van Eyck, in the panel of the Chancellor Rolin, will also use the peacock and the magpie.

The chancellor, whose strong character is well rendered by the artist, is wearing a fur-lined, elegant garment; the Virgin, the same size as Rolin (rather a novelty in comparison to the Gothic painting tradition), is instead covered by a red mantle.

The perfectionist rendering of details and textures, such as the capitals, the checquered pavement, the goldwork of the angel's crown or the garments is characteristic of Jan van Eyck's work, of which this is one of the finest examples.

[6] Many van Eycks show an interior space that is actually very small, but the depiction is subtly managed to retain a sense of intimacy, but without feeling constricted.

The reliefs just over Rolin's head show (from left) the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise (Pride), the Killing of Abel by Cain (Envy) and the Drunkenness of Noah (Gluttony).

Then the lion-heads on the capitals behind Rolin may stand for Anger, and the tiny squashed rabbits between column and base in the loggia screen for Lust (which they were considered to exemplify in the Middle Ages).

However this leaves Avarice and Sloth unaccounted for, unless perhaps the human figures of Rolin himself (with his underdrawn purse), and the idlers out on the terrace (perhaps including, as stated above, van Eyck himself) represent the last two vices.