Portrait of Jean Gros (recto); Coat of Arms of Jean Gros (verso)

Rogier van der Weyden's Portrait of Jean Gros (1460–64) depicts a prominent Burgundian court official, with the reverse displaying Gros's coat of arms in an elaborate heraldic format. Rogier was official city painter of Brussels and the most influential Flemish painter of the generation after Jan van Eyck, whose formal repertoire he transformed through a new emotional intensity and psychological depth. This late portrait, from the final years of the artist's life, displays his mature command of characterization — the sitter's face rendered with an almost painful exactitude that penetrates behind the formal dignity of the court official to the private person within. The heraldic reverse confirms the painting's function as an instrument of noble identity.

Rogier's oil on panel technique achieves extraordinary precision in rendering the sitter's features with sharp, crystalline clarity, using thin glazes to build up luminous flesh tones against a plain background that focuses attention on physiognomy.