One of the greatest masters of Netherlandish art and a pioneer of realism in early-15th-century Netherlandish painting (along with Jan van Eyck), Robert Campin is now widely acknowledged to be the so-called Master of Flémalle, a previously unknown Flemish painter of the Renaissance period noted for his naturalism. Based in the Flemish town of Tournai, where he held the post of dean of the painters’ guild, Campin helped to shift the Netherlandish school from Gothic to Renaissance, humanizing his subject matter and subverting aristocratic taste by painting meticulously observed detail imbued with symbolic meaning. Producing biblical scenes set in contemporary interiors, such as the Annunciation (c.1415-25), Campin was widely influential, in part by way of his pupil, the painter Rogier van der Wyden. His work is considered to be indebted to the art of manuscript illumination.