very other quality peculiar to him, we observe here
a perfection of tone and of chiaroscuro which no other specimen of this
whole period affords. It is recorded that Princess Mary, sister of
Charles V. and Governess of the Netherlands, purchased this picture from
a barber to whom it belonged at the price of a post worth a hundred
gulden a year. Among its subsequent possessors were Don Diego de
Guevara, majordomo of Joan, Queen of Castile, by whom it was presented
to Margaret of Austria. In 1530 it was acquired by Mary of Hungary, and
later it returned to Spain. In 1789 it was in the palace at Madrid, and
soon after it was taken by one of the French Generals, in whose quarters
Major-General Hay found it after the battle of Waterloo.

Two other portraits in the National Gallery bear the signature of Jan
Van Eyck. No. 222, An elderly man, head and shoulders, on the frame of
which is the painter's motto, "als ich can," and his signature,
"Johannes de Eyck me fecit anno 1433, 21 Octobris." The other, No. 290,
is a younger man, half length, standing inside an open window, on the
sill of which is inscribed "[Greek: Timotheos]," and "Leal Souvenir,"
and below the date and signature, "Actum anno domini 1432, 10 die
Octobris a Iohanne de Eyck."

Among the Netherlandish scholars and followers of the Van Eycks of whom
any record has been preserved some appear to have been gifted with
considerable powers, though none attained the excellence of their great
precursors. Although a number of works representing this school still
exist in the various countries of Europe, yet compared with the actual
abundance of them at one time they constitute but a scanty remnant.

Though not actually a pupil of Jan Van Eyck, ROGER VAN DER WEYDEN
acquired after him the greatest celebrity. As early as 1436 he filled
the honourable post of official painter to the city of Brussels. The
chief work executed by him in this capacity was an altar-piece for the
Chamber of Justice in Hotel de Ville. According to the custom of the
time, it set forth in the most realistic fashion examples of stern
observance of the law for the admonition of those placed in authority.
The principal picture showed how Herkenbald, a judge in the eleventh
century, executed his own nephew (convicted of a grave crime, but who
would otherwise have escaped the penalty of the law) with his own hands;
and how the sacramental wafer which, on the plea of murder, was denied
to him by the prie