Portrait of Antoine, bastard of Burgundy, wearing the Order of the Golden Fleece on its chain of stylised flints and steels, emblem of his father, Philip the Good, probably 1463. Oil on panel. Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium.
Antoine (1421–1504), known to his contemporaries as "the bastard of Burgundy" or "the Grand Bastard - le grand bâtard" - was the natural son (and first child) of Philip III, Duke of Burgundy and one of his mistresses, Jeanne de Presle. Born in 1421, possibly at Lizy in Picardy, he was brought up in the Burgundian court with his younger half-brother, the Count of Charolais, later Charles the Bold, last of the Valois Dukes of Burgundy, to whom he grew very close.
He also enjoyed sporting success; the arrow he holds in the Van der Weyden portrait is presumed to relate to his year as "archer king" in 1463, after winning the annual contest of the archer's guild of St Sebastian in Bruges. Charles the Bold won the Brussels contest every year between 1466 and 1471.
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