Virgin and Child, with Saints and Donor

Saint Barbara, to the left, with her attribute, the tower, in which she was imprisoned, behind her. As she was, among other roles, patron saint of soldiers, the statue of Mars is shown in a window of her tower. Saint Elisabeth of Hungary, who gave up her crown to become a nun, perhaps depicted because she was the patron saint of Isabella of Portugal, the Duchess of Burgundy, who supported the Carthusian monasteries in the Netherlands and Switzerland. The Carthusian monk has been identified as Jan Vos, Prior of the Charterhouse of Genadeda — or Val-de-Grâce — near Bruges, and a well-known figure in fifteenth-century monastic life in the Netherlands. Documents relate that this painting was ordered as a “pious memorial of Dom Jan Vos. Most scholars consider this one of van Eyck’s last paintings, begun by him in 1441 but completed after his death in his shop.