Van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece and the many thefts of a masterpiece

The price for being the most famous painting in the world was that it also became the most stolen. During its long history, the altarpiece has been the victim of 13 different crimes.

By Michael Prodger

SAINT-BAVOâ?TS CATHEDRAL GHENT Ac LUKASWEB.BE-ART IN FLANDERS VZW, PHOTO HUGO MAERTENS, KIK-IRPA (Photo By The inside of Hubert and Jan van Eyckâ?Ts The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, better known as the Ghent Altarpiece)

In May 2019 workmen started to dig up Kalandeberg square, not far from St Bavo’s Cathedral in the Belgian city of Ghent. There was, however, no trouble with a water main or gas pipe; what the excavators were after was a missing piece of one of the world’s greatest artworks, the Ghent Altarpiece.

The altarpiece, 11ft high by 15ft wide and comprising 24 paintings, was commissioned from Hubert van Eyck in the 1420s but was largely unfinished at his death in 1426. The work was taken up by his younger brother Jan, who was, according to a now lost inscription on the frame, “second best in the art” (Hubert was “greater than anyone”).