page_title: Robert Campin
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Campin / Life
context_page_description: Robert Campin, now usually identified with the Master of Flémalle, was the first great master of Flemish and Early Netherlandish painting. Campin's identity and the attribution of the paintings in both the "Campin" and "Master of Flémalle" groupings have been a matter of controversy for decades. Campin was highly successful during his lifetime, and thus his activities are relatively well documented, but he did not sign or date his works, and none can be confidently connected with him.
  A corpus of work is attached to the unidentified "Master of Flémalle," so named in the 19th century after three religious panels said to have come from a monastery in Flémalle. They are each assumed to be wings of triptychs or polyptychs, and are the Virgin and Child with a Firescreen now in London, a panel fragment with the Thief on the Cross in Frankfurt, and the Brussels version of the Mérode Altarpiece.
  Campin was active by 1406 as a master painter in Tournai, in today's Belgium, and became that city's leading painter for 30 years. He had attained citizenship by 1410, and may have studied under Jan van Eyck. His fame had spread enough by 1419 that he led a large and profitable workshop.
context_section_description: Campin first appears as settled in Tournai from the archives of 1405–06, as a free master of the guild of goldsmiths and painters, and there has been a lot of speculation about his origin and birthplace which is actually unknown, although he is sometimes listed as having been born in Valenciennes. In 1408 he had purchased the house that he had been leasing since 1406 near the Tournai Cathedral. In 1410 he bought into the full citizenship.  
  Records show a large number of commissions from individuals and guilds, as well as from ecclesiastical and civic authorities. Campin owned several houses, purchased city bonds and invested in mortgages.
  Between 1423 and 1429, the city government was dominated by the guilds. Campin  was the deputy dean of the guild of goldsmiths and painters in 1423/24 and 1425. In 1427 he represented the guild on the city council.
  After restoration  of the oligarchy of full citizens, the leaders of the guild regime, including Robert Campin, were brought to court. Campin was ordered to make a pilgrimage to Saint-Gilles and pay the fine.
  Campin was married to Ysabel de Stocquain (Elisabeth van Stokkem). The couple was childless. He had an affair with Laurence Polette, for which he was prosecuted in 1432 and sentenced to banishment for a year.  Margaret of Burgundy, wife of the Count of Holland and sister of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy intervened on his behalf, and this was reduced to a fine. 
  Short time after the verdict Campin's apprentices Rogier van der Weyden and Jacques Daret were accepted as masters into the guild of painters. However, the dated Werl Altarpiece (1438) shows he continued to work (the two outer wings are in the Prado; the main panel is lost). He died in his adopted city of Tournai in 1444.
caption: The Mérode Altarpiece, attributed to the Master of Flémalle or workshop, c. 1425-1428
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