Closer to Van Eyck

As part of the Panel Paintings Initiative, this project collected documentation of unprecedented detail on the Ghent Altarpiece and made it available through a digital platform: Closer to Van Eyck. The site allows users to study the painting in regular light, infrared reflectography (IRR), and x-radiography, and zoom into its many details before, during, and after conservation treatment.

Closer to Van Eyck set new standards for conservation treatment documentation by providing access to the decision-making process for the treatment of the altarpiece and by disseminating the open-source technology behind the website to the museum community. KIK-IRPA continues to maintain and enhance Closer to Van Eyck, including the addition of high quality, standardized technical images of other paintings by Jan van Eyck as part of its VERONA project.

Jan and Hubert van Eyck’s famous Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, better known as the Ghent Altarpiece of 1432, ranks among the most significant works of art in Europe. Housed at Saint Bavo Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium, the large and complex altarpiece suffered a varied history over the centuries. Dismantled, stolen, and damaged many times over, it was reassembled, cleaned, and restored after World War II. Despite this harrowing past, today scholars around the world can study the altarpiece from anywhere, thanks to a series of grants provided by the Getty Foundation as part of the Panel Paintings Initiative.

Four grants between 2010 and 2013 made it possible for an international research team to stabilize the painting, complete a condition assessment that revealed that the panels did indeed require treatment, train emerging conservation professionals during the process, and produce a digital application that assembles over 100 billion pixels of documentation in a singular place for continued study.

• Digital platform Closer to Van Eyck that set new standards for conservation documentation and access

• Technical reports from the condition assessment made available on Closer to Van Eyck

• Informational videos about the conservation process

• Training of postgraduate and mid-career conservators of panel paintings who participated in condition assessment and emergency stabilization