Robert Campin

Southern Netherlands · 1375–1444

Robert Campin, now usually identified with the Master of Flémalle (earlier the Master of the Merode Triptych before the discovery of three other similar panels), was a master painter who, along with Jan van Eyck, initiated the development of early Netherlandish painting, a key development in the early Northern Renaissance. While the existence of a highly successful painter called Robert Campin is relatively well documented for the period, no works can be certainly identified as by him through a signature or contemporary documentation. A group of paintings, none dated, have been long attributed to him, and a further group were once attributed to an unknown "Master of Flémalle". It is now usually thought that both groupings are by Campin, but this has been a matter of some controversy for decades.