Tournai looms large in the history of early Flemish painting, for it was here that the next important group of masters after the Van Eycks appeared. As early as the first half of the fourteenth century paintings on cloth were executed at Tournai, followed by what was termed "flat painting" for panels. About 1406 the first of the great artists whose names have come down to us settled at Tournai. This was Robert Campin. He acquired the right of citizenship in 1410 and died in 1444, being thus a contemporary of the Van Eycks. He is known to have painted many works, but until recently none of these had been definitely identified. Now, thanks to the earnest and patient study of Belgian scholars, he seems likely to be given his rightful place as one of the greatest of the early Flemish masters--after having been completely forgotten for nearly five hundred years! His most important work is an altarpiece in the possession of the Mérode family at Brussels, while the Frankfort Museum and the Prado at Madrid contain some fine examples of his skill. It is known that Robert Campin was the master of two other Tournai artists, Rogier Van der Weyden and Jacques Daret, of whom the former soon far surpassed his teacher in renown. Daret entered the atelier of Robert Campin in 1418, when a lad of fourteen, obtained the title of apprentice in 1427, and became a member of the Guild of St. Luke in 1432. One of his pictures, a panel showing the Nativity, was in the collection of the late Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan. Van der Weyden, whose Walloon name was Roger de la Pasture, became one of Campin's apprentices in 1427--the same date as Daret--and was admitted to the guild of the painters at Tournai in 1432. He spent much of his time at Brussels, however, and is sometimes considered as belonging to that city rather than Tournai. A "Descent from the Cross" now at the Escorial is his most famous picture. It was painted for the Archers' Company at Louvain and a copy of it, made by the master himself, was hung in the Church of St. Pierre in that city. About 1430 Van der Weyden was commissioned to paint four large panels for the Hall of Justice in the new Hotel de Ville at Brussels. Two of these showed Trajan, the Just Emperor, and the other two depicted the Justice of Herkenbald, and for more than two centuries the series was regarded as the finest group of paintings in the Low Countries. They were destroyed at the bombardment of Brussels in 1695, but tapestries copied from the originals still exist in the Museum at Berne, having been captured by the Swiss when Charles the Bold was defeated at Granson.