Virgin and Child with Four Angels

Virgin and Child with Four Angels has been housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, since its donation from a private collection in 1977.

The scene takes place below a Gothic arch in a walled garden—intended to represent Mary's pureness and virginity—[3] and before a view of contemporary Bruges.

[5] Mary has long curled blonde hair, the strands of which are finely detailed with extremely thin brush strokes.

She wears a heavily folded red gown lined with minutely described gold stitches which are so delicately woven into the trims of dress they are not usually visible in reproduction.

[8] The placement of a Carthusian monk walking underneath a tree in the garden behind the main figures makes it likely that the work was commissioned by a member of their Genadedal monastery in Sint-Kruis outside Bruges.

[12] David has added two more angels to van Eyck's scene, and sets the figures in a recognisable contemporary location.

[13] Art historian Maryan Ainsworth describes the painting as a "devotional object for the veneration of an esteemed icon" and believes that the Byzantine influence "trickled down" from van Eyck.