Barthélemy van Eyck, Seven Famous Figures from Ancient History, c. 1442, pen and ink with watercolor, heightened with white, on vellum, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Woodner Collection, Gift of Andrea Woodner, 2006
This is one of nine surviving pages from an illustrated chronicle that originally depicted more than three hundred ancient, biblical, medieval, and legendary people. The famous figures were presented in quasi-chronological order, beginning with the creation of Adam. The seven on this page are from the sixth century BC. The two figures in the top row are Brutus Lucius Junius, a founder and consul of the Roman Republic, and Peisistratus, an autocratic ruler of ancient Athens. In the next row, the Persian king Cambyses II stands before the city of Babylon, which, according to the Latin inscription below it, he had saved from Egypt. He is paired with the Hebrew heroine Judith, who beheaded the Babylonian general Holofernes. Standing in the last row are the Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras; Darius the Great, Cambyses II’s successor to the Persian throne; and the Old Testament prophet Haggai.
