Such are the general characteristics of the Early Flemish School. Passing now to its historical development and to its relations with the schools of Germany, we may distinguish three successive periods. (1) The birthplace of painting as a separate art in the North was on the Lower Rhine, at Maastricht and Cologne. Of this school of the Lower Rhine a characteristic specimen is No. 687. It is properly grouped with the Early Flemish School, because in the fourteenth century most of the Flemish artists were Germans from the valley of the Rhine. (2) Later on, however, the great development in the prosperity and wealth of the Low Countries--the land of the Woolsack and the Golden Fleece, led to the growth of a native art. This was closely connected with the schools of illuminators patronised by the Courts of France and Burgundy, and many works of the _Primitifs_ cannot be distinguished, with any complete certainty, as French or Flemish. Just as at Venice the people, busy with their trade, preferred for a long time to buy rather than produce their works of art, but afterwards settled down and made works for themselves, so in Flanders the German art came to be superseded by a native Flemish art. The Early Flemish School, covering roughly the period 1400-1500, was the result, the most important masters being Van Eyck, Van der Weyden, Bouts, David, and Memlinc. (3.) It was now the turn of this school to influence that of Germany. The Flemish masters were great travellers, and the German masters were no doubt attracted to Flanders by the great technical skill there in vogue. Hence we now come to a second period in German painting--marked by Flemish influence. There is less of the mysticism and more realism; but with the realism there is an element of brutality and ugliness. Nos. 707 and 1049 are typical German pictures of this period.