EYCK, van, Flemish family of painters

The brothers Hubert van Eyck, Jan van Eyck and Lambert van Eyck were all painters; a sister, Margareta, was also identified as a painter by van Vaernewijck (1568), who recorded that she was unmarried and was buried next to Hubert in Ghent. According to tradition the family originated in Maaseick [Maeseyck], near Maastricht. The family belonged to the gentry: the armorials of Jan's epitaph in St Bavo's, Ghent, showed that his father or grandfather came from Brabant, perhaps near 's-Hertogenbosch, and married a woman from a Mosan family. It is possible that Barthélemy d'Eyck, court painter to King René I of Anjou, belonged to the same family.