the sitter's appearance. However, by his later works, the sitter placed at more of a distance, and the attention to detail less marked. The descriptions are less forensic, more of an overview, while the forms are broader and flatter. Even in his early works, his descriptions of the model are not faithful reproductions; parts of the sitters face or form were altered to either present a better composition or fit an ideal. He often altered the relative proportions of his models' head and body to focus on the elements of their features that interested him. This led him to distort reality in this paintings; in the portrait of his wife he altered the angle of her nose, and gave her a fashionably high forehead that nature had not. The stone parapet at the base of the canvas of Léal Souvenir is painted as if to simulate marked or scarred stone and contains three separate layers of inscriptions, each rendered in an illusionistic manner, giving the impression they are chiseled onto stone. van Eyck often set the inscriptions as if in the sitters voice, so that they "appear to be speaking". Examples include the Portrait of Jan de Leeuw which reads ... Jan de [Leeuw], who first opened his eyes on the Feast of St Ursula [21 October], 1401. Now Jan van Eyck has painted me, you can see when he began it. 1436. In Portrait of Margaret van Eyck of 1439 the lettering acclaims My husband Johannes completed me in the year 1439 on 17 June, at the age of 33. As I can. Hands play a special significance in van Eyck's painting. In his early portraits the sitters are often shown holding objects indicative of their profession. The man in Léal Souvenir may have been a legal professional as he holds a scroll resembling a legal document. The Arnolfini Portrait of 1432 is filled with illusionism and symbolism, as is the 1435 Madonna of Chancellor Rolin, commissioned to display Rolin's power, influence and piety. Style Iconography Van Eyck incorporated a wide variety of iconographic elements, often conveying what he saw as a co-existence of the spiritual and material worlds. The iconography was embedded in the work unobtrusively; typically the references comprised small but key background details. His use of symbolism and biblical references is characteristic of his work, a handling of religious iconography he pioneered, with his innovations taken