The Ghent Altarpiece (Adoration of the Mystic Lamb)

This towering polyptych - a hinged altarpiece of many panels - is the foundational masterpiece of Early Netherlandish painting, begun by Hubert van Eyck and completed by his brother Jan in 1432. Across the lower register crowds of saints, prophets, and pilgrims converge on an altar where the Lamb of God stands, blood streaming into a chalice - the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, drawn from the Book of Revelation, where the slain Lamb is the risen Christ. Above sit God enthroned, the Virgin, and John the Baptist, flanked by singing angels and, at the far ends, a startlingly naked Adam and Eve. Van Eyck's oil technique renders every brocade, jewel, and blade of grass with hallucinatory precision. One lower panel, stolen in 1934, has never been recovered.