The term Netherlandish portraiture conjures a type of likeness in three-quarter facial angle. It became popular in the fifteenth century among the wealthy urban communities of the Duchy of Burgundy, a territory that is roughly comparable with Belgium today. It is on autonomous panels, and in diptychs and triptychs with devotional purposes. It appears so veristic that it could be described as photographic. The slow-drying oil medium, which until then had not been applied on panels, allowed painters to attain such naturalistic results that they still distract us from the disproportionally large head of the figures in comparison with their torso, especially in the early autonomous examples. Similarly, in many of these portraits the nose, eye, and lip corner of the less exposed side of the face are flattened, perhaps to help recognise the sitters, as has been suggested. These images confirm the maturity of an existing trend towards more naturalistic physiognomy. They have survived in large quantities, and in the individual portraits the subjects’ miens and the muted colours of their clothing seem to purposefully create an aura of solemnity that is often enhanced by neutral backgrounds.