That the red turban worn by Jan van Eyck in his self portrait depicts the symbolic ‘Lamb of God’ is confirmed by two other 15th century painters – Rogier van der Weyden and Hugo van der Goes, albeit in a less flamboyant way.

A surviving fragment of a lost painting by Van der Weyden, known as the Virgin and Child with Saints, is a portrait generally assumed to represent Joseph the husband of Mary. The portrait is housed at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon. The likeness of Joseph is modeled on the ageing Jan van Eyck, confirmed by references Van der Weyden makes to the Man in a Red Turban Portrait. The date of the St Joseph portrait is put at 1435-38, shortly after Van Eyck completed his own portrait and dated it, October 21, 1433.

St Joseph’s hat is not the winding chaperon as depicted in the Van Eyck self-portrait. Instead, its double tier is based on the style of the cap Van Eyck has added to the Crucifixion figure (see previous post).

Joseph’s blue mantle represents the curved segment of the Virgin Mary outlined in the self-portrait. Enclosed in the mantle are two other features that Jan depicted in the red turban: the Lamb of God and the Resurrection. However, the latter makes no reference to the rooster, symbolic of the Resurrection. Instead, Van der Weyden has taken another biblical pointer to the same event, the large fish or whale that swallowed the prophet Jonah for three days.

Rising from the tail end of the large fish is the shape of the ‘Lamb of God’ with its muzzle nestling in Joseph’s neck and its long ears merging into the form of the ‘whale’.

Van der Weyden has also repeated Van Eyck’s bloodshot eyes, the dark mark on his left temple, and his stubbled chin.

Note also the vacant aedicula on the building behind Joseph. The pedestal and canopy are there – but no statue – perhaps awaiting one of St Joseph in the guise of Jan van Eyck, a permanent roost assigned for guardians who keep watch and annunciate.

• My next post will explain how both these paintings connect to the work of another Netherlandish painter, Hugo van der Goes, and the St Vincent Panels housed at the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon, Portugal.