The small rural town of Maaseyck, on the left bank of the Maas, in the old duchy of Limburg, was the home of the Van Eycks and the birthplace of the elect of their stock, Hubert's coming being traditionally associated with the year 1365, John's with 1385. In the absence of documentary evidence to the contrary, these data are acceptable as founded on reasonable conjecture. There is no record of their parentage, but we know of a third brother, named Lambert, and of a kinsman, one Henry van Eyck, whose exact relationship has not been established. As the early instinct of genius revealed the true bent of the elder lad's disposition, the outstanding advantages of a distinguished school of painting within hail almost of their doors naturally appealed to parents anxious to give effect to their son's aspirations; so to Maastricht they turned, where the boy was duly apprenticed to one or other of its recognised masters. Having served his articles and in due course been admitted to the rank of journeyman, the youthful artist, now free to qualify for his mastership, entered upon the most interesting period of his education, a period largely spent, according to the custom of the time, in foreign travel; and it is with this stage of Hubert's career that criticism first finds legitimate occupation. Futile as would be the attempt to trace a definite itinerary, it is allowable to conjecture that the mother school of Cöln would mark the first stage in the young artist's travels: in the centre-piece of the great polyptych we discover in the background architectural work distinctly reminiscent of that city, and detail unmistakably Rhenish in character, testifying to a close acquaintance with the district. Evidence of similar import, such as the cathedral in the Louvre picture and the city view with a faithful presentation of Old Saint Paul's as seen from the south in that of Baron Gustave Rothschild's collection, on the confident assumption that these are from the brush of Hubert, bespeak visits to France and England; while the landscape work in all his paintings betrays so intimate an acquaintance with central and southern European scenery as almost to compel us into the beaten tracks of the wandering artist-student of the time through Switzerland and the south of France, to sunny Italy and erubescent Spain. The variety of his mountain scenery--undulating hills and snow-capped peaks, rugged crags and Alpine heights; the depth of his liquid skies and spacious firmaments, with their marvellous cloud and light effects, melodies in colour that breathe the warmth of a southern sun; and the extent of his botanical lore, embracing the olive and citron, the stone pine and cypress, the date-palm and palmetto, naturalised exotics of the Mediterranean slopes--all these and other particulars too numerous to list bear the hall-mark of knowledge garnered in the observant pursuit of local colouring.