Van Eyck: The Portraits Opens at the National Gallery on 21 November

The National Gallery's autumn show gathers Jan van Eyck's portraits in one place. 'Van Eyck: The Portraits' opens on Saturday 21 November 2026 in the Ground Floor Galleries and runs to 11 April 2027, the gallery's exhibition page says.

Nine or ten

The gallery's page says the show brings together from across Europe all nine of the artist's known painted portraits. ianVisits, previewing it on 7 August, wrote of all ten surviving portraits, and said Dresden would lend the silverpoint and goldpoint drawing, Van Eyck's only surviving drawing. We have not found the gallery explaining the difference, so both counts are given as reported.

What is named

• The gallery's page captions 'Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?)', 1433.
• ianVisits says Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum lends both its Van Eycks, 'Portrait of an Elderly Man' and 'Jan de Leeuw', and that Berlin's 'Portrait of a Man from Berlin' is shown with the National Gallery's 'Arnolfini Portrait'.
• ianVisits also says Bruges lends 'Margaret, the Artist's Wife', shown with the National Gallery's 'Portrait of a Man'.

Tickets

Standard admission is £18 and includes an audio guide; under-18s and members go free, the gallery says. Its members' preview day on 20 November is sold out. ianVisits reported in August that the price was not yet confirmed, so the gallery's page is the current figure.

It is one of several openings in the weeks after the fairs: see London culture, November and December 2026, and the photography side in Nan Goldin at the Hayward, which opens three days later. The London Museum's new Smithfield home opens a week after.

For anyone who photographs paintings for a gallery or a fair, our guide to photographing artwork in a studio covers the light and the colour.