Jan van Eyck

Jan van Eyck (van EYEK; Dutch: [ˈjɑɱ vɑn ˈɛik]; c. before 1390 – 9 July 1441) was an early Netherlandish painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as early Netherlandish painting, and one of the supreme figures of the Early Northern Renaissance. Such was his legacy, that he has been called "the inventor of oil-painting" by Vasari, Ernst Gombrich, and others, although this claim is now considered an oversimplification. Surviving records date his birth at around 1380 or 1390, in Maaseik (then Maaseyck, hence his name) by the Limburg in present-day Belgium.