DYCK, Sir Anthony van

This is an important painting from the artist’s early period. It is assumed that Isaac has the facial features of the painter.

Some of Van Dyck’s Apostles were painted for cycles along Spanish lines. They suggest spiritual self-portraits as defined by their subjects. These busts share an informal authenticity and lack of academic decorum.

Some of Van Dyck’s Apostles were painted for cycles along Spanish lines. They suggest spiritual self-portraits as defined by their subjects. These busts share an informal authenticity and lack of academic decorum.

The companion-piece of this painting represents the wife of the sitter.

In April 1632 King Charles I (1600-49) succeeded in attracting Van Dyck, in demand as a painter of religious and mythological pictures as well as of portraits in Antwerp, to London. In July of that year the artist, now Principal Painter in Ordinary to their Majesties, was knighted at St James’s. From that time he was to have a virtual monopoly of portraits of the king and queen on the scale of life, having rendered the work of his predecessors at court old-fashioned. In a series of huge canvases strategically placed at the end of great galleries in the king’s various residences, he displayed the power and splendour of the British monarchy and of the early Stuart dynasty, modernising traditional themes of royal panegyric.

This likeness of the king on horseback takes as its point of departure the archetypal image on the obverse of all the Great Seals of England: the sovereign as warrior. King Charles is wearing Greenwich-made armour and holding a commander’s baton. A page carries his helmet. In keeping with the imperial claim of the inscription (in Latin on the tablet tied to the tree in this portrait: CAROLUS REX MAGNAE BRITANIAE - Charles King of Great Britain), the pose and woodland setting echo Titian’s equestrian portrait of the Emperor Charles V at Muhlberg. (Titian’s painting itself recalled the famous Roman bronze of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius on horseback.) Over his armour Charles wears a gold locket bearing the image of Saint George and the Dragon, the so-called Lesser George. He wore it constantly; it contained a portrait of his wife, and was with him the day he died. Here, however, it identifies him with the Order of the Garter of which Saint George was patron. As Garter Sovereign he is riding, like Charles V, at the head of his chivalrous knights in defence of the faith. In a profound sense the portrait is a visual assertion of Charles’s claim to Divine Kingship. Albeit high above our heads - the horizon line ensures that our viewpoint is roughly at the level of his stirrup - his face is undistorted by foreshortening. Van Dyck’s three-quarter view refines his features, and he bestrides his horse with a remote air of noble contemplation.

This painting, commissioned by the King, is one of the masterpieces of the artist. It is one of the great equestrian portraits Van Dyck made of Charles I. They glorify the absolute ruler Charles I wished to be. This emphasis has given these pictures a pronounced propagandist quality, which would have been even more obvious to anyone seeing them in the places for which they were originally intended, in prominent positions in royal residences. Artist and patron must both have had such examples in mind as Titian’s Charles V at M�hlberg, the most influential Renaissance equestrian portrait of a victorious monarch. However, Van Dyck’s portrait is more intimate in character. The fine, Venetian-inspired landscape setting, and the relaxed attitude of the king and his companion accord very well with the popularity of pastoral subject matter in contemporary literature and visual arts.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 9 minutes):

Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto in B flat major RV 362 op. 8 No. 10 (Hunt)

An early work by Van Dyck, pupil of Rubens that time. Cornelis van der Geest was a merchant and art collector in Antwerp, and the friend of Rubens.

The contrast between the serenity of Christ and the villainy of his captors is vigorously conveyed in this early work by Van Dyck. The composition, as so often, is based on a prototype by Titian, of whom Van Dyck was a passionate admirer. But the influence of Rubens is also crucial, and the presentation is typically baroque: the viewer is forced into the role of a close but helpless witness of the violence enacted. The effect is reinforced by Van Dyck’s textures - for instance the exposed and brilliant chest of Christ against the gleaming precision of the axe above or the fluid musculature of the tormentor beside it.

This early Van Dyck’s painting stands in Chapel of Sant’Atanasio of Venetian Church of San Zaccaria.

Cupid and Psyche is without doubt one of the most beautiful paintings undertaken by Van Dyck for Charles I. It is a late work, possibly dating from 1639-40, thinly painted throughout with several changes visible to the naked eye and some passages, particularly in the landscape, unresolved to the extent that the painting might not have been properly finished. Significantly, when first recorded in the Long Gallery at Whitehall Palace the picture was unframed. Both these factors might have some bearing on the circumstances of the commission. It has been suggested, for example, that the subject relates to the decoration of the Queen’s Cabinet at Greenwich, which was initiated towards the end of 1639 by Rubens and Jacob Jordaens but was never completed - although a certain amount of preparatory material by Jordaens is recorded. Alternatively, the painting could have been made in the context of the celebrations for the marriage of Princess Mary to William II of Orange (April-May 1641).

The story of Cupid and Psyche was well known at the English court. The source is The Golden Ass by Apuleius (Books 4-6). Van Dyck has chosen the moment when Cupid discovers Psyche overcome by sleep after opening the casket which Venus had requested her to bring back, unopened, from Proserpine in Hades. This was one of the tricks set by Venus in Psyche’s attempt to find Cupid. Compositionally, there is a kinship with paintings of Adam and Eve or the Annunciation. It is stated traditionally that Psyche’s features resembled those of Van Dyck’s mistress, Margaret Lemon.

Van Dyck’s role as court painter seems primarily to have been directed towards portraiture, even though he was a supremely able painter of poesie in the Italian tradition. Cupid and Psyche is the only mythological composition known to survive from the time of the artist’s full employment at the English court (after 1632). Bellori records that other mythological paintings were made but these are now lost. This accounts for the long gap between the Rinaldo and Armida (Baltimore, Museum of Art), which the king commissioned in 1630 before the artist settled permanently in London, and Cupid and Psyche. In many ways the later painting may be seen as a summation of Van Dyck’s art in this field. The composition successfully combines the artist’s feeling for landscape with his understanding of the human form, both aspects being conveyed through superb draughtsmanship, here successfully conflated by the skilful use of diagonals. The sense of movement implied by Cupid’s arrival contrasts with the stillness of Psyche asleep to create a tension that is the very essence of the picture, matching perfectly the contrast within the story itself between Beauty (Psyche) and Desire (Cupid). Such ethereal neo-Platonic ideals, which were open to various interpretations about love and the soul, were nurtured as part of the court life of Charles I and Henrietta Maria.

Stylistically, the principal inspiration is Titian, whose pictures were such a major feature of Charles I’s collection, but the highly charged poetic feeling, refined use of colours balancing warm and cold hues, and delicate modelling of human flesh that Van Dyck brings to the painting anticipate French Rococo art, especially the work of Watteau. In addition, it should not be forgotten that Cupid and Psyche was painted on the eve of the outbreak of the Civil War, so in many respects the choice of subject and the poetic intensity of the painting have a certain poignancy when seen in an historical context.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 4 minutes):

Francesco Gasparini: The Meddlesome Cupid, aria

Anthony van Dyck was not only celebrated throughout Europe for his portraits of persons of rank, but was also highly regarded by his colleagues. Evidence of this are the portraits commissioned from him by artists, like this double portrait of Frans Snyders, a painter of animals and still-lifes, and his wife Margaretha de Vos.

The depiction of both spouses on a single panel makes it possible to portray a more intimate relationship, and this was the format that Anthony van Dyck tended to prefer, especially for his fellow artists. The joined hands, which originally stood for the promise of marriage, are here a sign of marital fidelity and mutual affection.

St Ambrose, the fearsome fourth-century Archbishop of Milan, is said to have refused Theodosius entry into the cathedral because of the emperor’s vengeful massacre of the inhabitants of Thessalonica. Theodosius impetuously thrusts his face upwards towards the saint. Ambrose’s sturdy vigour has been transferred to the crozier as if the priest who holds it for the saint were ready to bring it crashing down on the emperor.

This painting is a free copy by Van Dyck of a large painting now in Vienna executed in Rubens’s studio. The finely drawn profile to the right of St Ambrose has been identified as a portrait of Nicolaas Rockocx, the friend for whom Rubens painted Samson and Delilah.

This is a youthful work of the artist painted when he was a member of Rubens’s workshop. The picture was executed in the style of Rubens.

It used to be believed this was the portrait of the painter Cornelis de Wael whom van Dyck knew in Italy. However, the man in the portrait does not look similar to other portraits of de Wael. It is possible the model was a member of the Genovese Balbi family.

Thomas Francis of Savoy, Prince of Carignano (Tommaso Francesco di Savoia, Principe di Carignano, 1596-1656) was an Italian military commander and the founder of the Savoy-Carignano branch of the House of Savoy, which reigned as kings of Sardinia from 1831 to 1861, and as kings of Italy from 1861 until the dynasty’s deposition in 1946.

The identity of the family is not known. Earlier the painting was supposed to be the family portrait of the painter Frans Snyders. However, Snyders had no children.

Van Dyck excelled in portraiture when he arrived in Rome at the age of 23 in 1622. His Roman works show a degree of variety and bravura that some of his later paintings, executed when he had the benefit of a large studio, sometimes lack. George Gage with Two Men is a brilliant essay in likeness and action, a conscious relation of objective reality and interrupted animation. George Gage’s role in selecting an antique sculpture for one of his patrons is immediately understood; the muscle of the porter, the attentiveness of the dealer watching his client and Gages’s praise of his wares are all magnificently evoked.

This painting was executed during the artist’s stay in Genoa.

The subject is the first wife of Rubens to whom the painting was attributed formerly. The ornamental gateway which Rubens built in his garden in Antwerp forms the architectural background. Van Dyck presented the painting to Rubens as a gift before he left for Italy in 1621. The sitter is about thirty, she died five years later, in 1626, probably of the plague.

Anthony van Dyck was the third leading member of the Antwerp School (beside Rubens and Jordaens). This youthful work shows Jupiter in the guise of a satyr, accompanied by his eagle attribute, discovering the sleeping nymph Antiope. The work, of which several versions are known, shows similarities with the style of Rubens and Jordaens, with both of whom the young Van Dyck collaborated.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 38 minutes):

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony in C Major (Jupiter-Symphony) K 551

In this painting Van Dyck represents one of the most moving sequences in The Passion of Christ. He achieves a dramatic effect by shedding light on the face of the Virgin Mary and leaving that of Jesus in semi-darkness, although the latter’s nude body, skillfully rendered and barely covered by the white shroud, seems to be the source of light. This canvas was painted during the last stage of the artist’s life in London, working for Charles I, and is perfectly in keeping with the idealised aesthetic guidelines laid down by the king, which included the elegance of figures, a compositional balance and a gentle colour range.

In this case the painter, who produced several versions of this theme, resorts to a landscape composition in which the figures form two groups connected by the child angel who is crying inconsolably: on the one hand, Magdalene, Jesus Christ and Mary, and on the other, two adult angels. The end figures lean towards the centre, thereby closing the composition.

Early in 1639 the two Stuart brothers, cousins of King Charles I and younger sons of the third Duke of Lennox, set off on a three-year tour of the Continent. They must have posed for Van Dyck just before their departure. Since his arrival at the court, the artist had developed a new portrait type: the double portrait recording friendship, often, but not necessarily, between relatives. The two brothers are shown as if poised on the point of departure, waiting perhaps for servants to bring up their carriage. Both were to die a few years later in the Civil War, and hindsight gives the image an added valedictory poignancy.

Van Dyck’s compositional skill is surpassed only by his matchless ability to depict satin, lace and meltingly-soft kid leather. But these carefully described effects are somehow not local: the whole surface of the canvas is brought alive with a flickering touch. The costumes, so fashionably similar, are beautifully contrasted - receding warm gold and brown on Lord John, cooler and advancing silver and blue on Lord Bernard - so that the two brothers, complementing each other in apparel, seem to form one shimmering, indivisible whole.

The Genoese noblewoman is shown on the terrace of her palace. The soaring columns and cloud-swept sky add a sense of height and dignity to the majestic figure, while the brilliant red parasol relieves the otherwise somber colour scheme. The Genoese nobility, wealthy from the trade of its powerful merchant marine, had many ties with members of the Spanish court and adopted many customs from them, including the sumptuous but sober fabrics of courtly dress. Van Dyck, in these portraits of his Genoese period, has immortalized the dignity and splendid scale of living of his patrons.

This portrait from Van Dyck’s Genoese period shows his genius for portraiture of rare elegance and profundity.

Margaret, a very self-possessed teenager of the ducal family of Lorraine, married Gaston d’Orl�ans, the oldest surviving brother of Louis XIII of France, in 1632. Full-length portraits were reserved for royalty and the highest nobility; the curtain, in royal red, adds movement and indirectly calls attention to the rich black fabric of the princess’s dress.

The painting is the companion piece of the portrait of Philippe Le Roy. It was painted on the occasion of their marriage in 1631 when she was sixteen years old.

Nicolaas Rockox (1560-1640) was the burgomaster (mayor) of Antwerp. His fame is largely attributed to his friendship to Rubens and the commissions he gave to this artist. His 17th-century patrician is housing a fine collection of Flemish art.

This painting belongs to a series of five works (two destroyed in World War II) painted in Rubens’s studio for a Bridgettine Cloister at Hoboken.

The nineteen-year-old Philip, Lord Wharton was one of the first people to be portrayed by Van Dyck in England. The gentle tones of the landscape lend particular delicacy to the noble features. The reference to Arcadia suggests Neoplatonic ideals of beauty and idyllic love; here the painter as alluding to the occasion for the portrait, the marriage of the young lord.

Philippe Le Roy was Councellor to the Archduke Ferdinand. The companion portrait of his young wife was painted the following year.

In this portrait by Anthony van Dyck, a brown-haired man, wearing a beard and a moustache, is represented in three-quarter profile, turned to the left against a dark, uniform background. He is wearing a dark cloth garment, decorated with a ruff and white cuffs, and holds a stone sculpted head representing a satyr. The dark colours serve to emphasise the sitter’s attentive gaze and elegant hand, whilst the vivacity of the face contrasts with the immobility of the sculpture. For a long time this painting was held to be a portrait of the Brussels sculptor Fran�ois Duquesnoy, who lived and worked in Rome from 1618 to 1643, where he developed a classical style that was strongly influenced by his study of antique sculpture and by the works of French painter Nicolas Poussin. This portrait would then have been painted during a trip that Anthony van Dyck made to Rome around ¹⁶²²⁄₂₃, where he supposedly struck up a friendship with the sculptor.

However, this famous painting presents problems as to the date of painting and in particular the identity of the sitter. The traditional identification was based on an engraving by Pieter van Bleeck in 1751 from the portrait in the Brussels museum, with an inscription mentioning the sculptor’s name and a short biographical text. This has recently been called into question. Bellori’s biography of the sculptor, published in 1672, mentions neither a friendship between the two men in Rome, nor a portrait of his compatriot by Van Dyck. What the biography does mention is that Duquesnoy was fair-haired and had blue eyes. Moreover, the engraved portrait illustrating his text, repeated in 1675 by Joachim von Sandrart in the Teutsche Academie, shows little resemblance to the present portrait, nor to the late engraving from it by Pieter van Bleeck. In addition, stylistic analysis has shown that the picture could not belong to Anthony van Dyck’s Italian period, but must be placed in his second Flemish period, where the colour range was more contained. This portrait is indeed by Van Dyck, but after his Italian trip, around ¹⁶²⁷⁄₂₉, when the painter was back in the country to which the Brussels sculptor never returned.

Anna Wake (1605-before 1669) was the wife of Peeter Stevens (c. 1590-1668), an Antwerp cloth merchant. The present portrait is the pendant of the portrait of Stevens, painted by Van Dyck one year before.

The portraits of Joost de Hertoghe and his wife Anna van Craesbecke represent full-length marriage portraits. They were painted during van Dyck’s stay in Brussels, the city where the knight Joost de Hertoghe, Lord of Franoy, had his residence.

The family of Antonio de Tassis (1584-1651) came from Bergamo, and developed the first postal system in Europe in the late fifteenth century. Antonio fought in the army of the Spanish Netherlands against the States General, losing his left arm. His wide garment in the portrait, which shows him as a canon in Antwerp Cathedral, conceals the missing arm.

The portrait was painted during van Dyck’s short stay in Antwerp in 1632. It shows the sitter at the age of fifty.

Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio (1579-1644), an Italian cardinal, statesman and historian, commissioned this portrait of himself. As papal nuncio, he had work for peace between the Catholics and the Protestants in Flanders, and the Catholics and the French Protestants (the Huguenots) in France. Van Dyck, refining the robust style of his master, Rubens, specialized in long, sensitive fingers and the lush treatment of fabrics - note the sitter’s moir� robe.

Van Dyck was no more than twenty-one when he painted the most important man in Christendom. Charles was precocious too: king of Spain, then Holy Roman emperor before he was twenty. During the religious wars, this Catholic sovereign of much of Europe made peace with the Protestants and captured Rome and the second Medici pope, Clement VII.

Van Dyck portrayed the Jesuit Jean-Charles della Faille with, as very prominent attributes, the instruments on the table to his left. The learned divine, from a wealthy Antwerp merchant family, entered the Company of Jesus in 1613. At the highly-reputed Antwerp school he advanced his mathematical skills with two famous teachers and fellow-Jesuits, Franciscus Aguilonius and Gregorius a Sancto Vincentio, going on to teach the subject himself at D�le , Leuven and Lier, until summoned in 1629 to lecture at Philippe IV’s recently founded Collegium Imperiale in Madrid. His activities in Spain were not limited to theory and teaching and from 1637 he served the court as a cosmographer and a specialist in warfare. It was commonplace in the early 17th century for a mathematician to master also related, often practical disciplines such as surveying and astronomy, and the instruments with which he is portrayed can be used in all these areas.

Next to a celestial globe we recognise a Dutch circle, a quadrant and plumb line, a compass in his hand and some scientific writings. The sector is from the workshop of Antwerp instrument maker Michiel Coignet. Jean-Charles della Faille kept up a regular correspondence with his fellow-cosmographer at the Spanish court in Brussels, Michael Florentius van Langren. In his position as a military engineer, the Jesuit father travelled to regions in rebellion against the Spanish crown, among them Portugal, Naples and Catalonia, but never returned to his native Netherlands. We can thus assume that Van Dyck portrayed him shortly before his departure in 1629, probably as a commission by his family. This is also the date mentioned on the canvas, together with the age of 32. Although of a later hand, both data appear to be acceptable.

This lively portrait records the inquisitive look of the Jesuit, presented in three-quarter profile. Two engravings of this painting are also preserved, a 17th century one by Adriaan Lommelin and a 19th century one by Fran�ois de Meersman. The latter print belonged to a series of Belgian mathematicians, which is surprising bearing in mind that in the 20th century della Faille’s importance in scientific history was hardly known.

Felipe Godines, the Portuguese Marrano merchant became lord of Cantecroy, Mortsel and Luithagen in 1627. Van Dyck recorded him for posterity in a pose appropriate to his newly acquired status.

This is the companion piece of the portrait of Justus van Meerstraeten, husband of the sitter.

This portrait of Jacques Le Roy dates from van Dyck’s Antwerp period. The sitter was a leading figure in Flemish society, a member of the Brabant Chamber of Commerce and its president in 1632. He also held public office in the service of the Spanish monarchy in the Netherlands.

General Sir James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Hamilton (1606-1649) was a Scottish nobleman and influential Civil war military leader.

The portraits of Joost de Hertoghe and his wife Anna van Craesbecke represent full-length marriage portraits. They were painted during van Dyck’s stay in Brussels, the city where the knight Joost de Hertoghe, Lord of Franoy, had his residence.

In 1634-35 Anthony van Dyck undertook several journeys on the continent, being one of the portrait painters most in demand. He travelled also to Brussels, where the double portraits of Justus van Meerstraeten and his wife Isabella van Assche were painted. As syndic, Meerstraeten was the holder of the city’s highest office, and this is how the artist has portrayed him.

Justus van Meerstraeten is clearly indoors, while in the companion piece his wife Isabella van Assche is shown in something like a grotto, opening on the right into a wooded landscape.

Lucas van Uffel (died 1637) was a wealthy Flemish merchant who lived in Venice, where Van Dyck probably painted this portrait early in his Italian period (1621–27). The portrait shows the sitter as a learned gentleman, with signs of his varied interests: dividers, a recorder, the bow of a viola da gamba, an antique head, a drawing, and a celestial globe.

During his first three years in Genoa, Van Dyck was paid for portraits of Marcello Durazzo and his wife Caterina Balbi (now in Genoa). The traditional configuration features celebratory elements, such as the column and drapes, but the relaxed execution and the nobleman’s insouciant pose point to a new and entirely individual sensitivity.

With his usual freedom, Van Dyck painted this Genoese marquis leaning against a pillar in a relaxed and negligent pose; yet the keen, forceful gaze also suggests the nobleman’s spirited, imperious character.

The family of Antonio de Tassis (1584-1651) came from Bergamo, and developed the first postal system in Europe in the late fifteenth century. Antonio and his daughter Maria belonged to the Antwerp branch of the family. The fine portrait shows her at the age of about nineteen.

The sitter of this portrait is possibly Adriaan van der Borght, a shipper and forwarding agent.

Peeter Stevens (c. 1590-1668) was an Antwerp cloth merchant. In 1627, he had his portrait painted by Anthony van Dyck. When Stevens got married a year later, he commissioned Van Dyck to paint his wife Anna as well. Anna was placed on the left, so that Stevens did not have his back turned to her. But actually convention dictated that the man should hang on the left and the woman on the right.

This painting portrays the daughters of Philip, 4th Lord Wharton. It was painted during the painter’s stay in England.

During his trip to Italy and in particular when he was living in Genoa, Anthony van Dyck painted many portraits of members of patrician families. These were strongly influenced by those that Peter Paul Rubens had produced for the same families almost two decades earlier. From these Van Dyck borrowed the structures and the chromatic oppositions between the dark, court clothing and the bright ruffs, embroideries and jewels. The painting in the Brussels museum is a good example of this type of official representation.

Porzia Imperiale and her daughter Maria Francesca belonged to a family of Genoese bankers. On 5 August 1610 the mother married Bartolomeo Imperiale, probably a distant cousin. Born in around 1586, she must have been between 35 and 40 when Anthony van Dyck stayed in Genoa. Maria Francesca’s date of birth is not known, but the inscription Virtute gaudet (she rejoices in virtue) on the virginal, exalting the young girl’s honour, shows that she was of marriageable age. Women occupied a special place in the Republic of Genoa. It is therefore not surprising to see them associated with Virtue, a quality with heroic connotations that is more generally ascribed to men.

Porzia Imperiale, seated here, is dressed in a black gown, its severity softened by an imposing ruff, a double chain, engraved buttons and lace-edged cuffs. In her left hand she carries a closed fan, whilst her right hand rests on the arm of the chair. Her daughter wears a light-coloured gown with silvery reflections, decorated with gilded braid and a ruff, its moir� reflections very finely balancing the dark mass of her mother’s gown. Porzia Imperiale’s determined face contrasts with Maria Francesca’s gentle and innocent looks. The background architectural details and the heavy red drapery confer a monumental aspect to the painting, further accentuated by the way in which the figures literally dominate the spectator, who views them from a low-angle position. The subtlety with which Van Dyck renders the different dark nuances is proof of an uncommon skill.

The sitter of this portrait is the young Prince Charles Louis (1617-1680), the nephew of King Charles I. The excellent portrait was painted directly from the life in London a few months before the death of van Dyck.

Two versions of this portrait of Prince Willem II of Orange (1626-1650) by van Dyck are recorded in period sources, one painted for the parents of Prince Willem II, and another version made for King Charles I of England. The portrait painted for the sitter’s parent descended in the family and is today in Schloss Mosigkau. The present portrait is almost certainly the recorded version painted for King Charles I.

Although they make up only a fraction of his considerable and varied artistic output, van Dyck’s depictions of children are among the most memorable and enchanting works that the artist ever produced. This portrait of Prince Willem II of Orange exemplifies the genre. It depicts the five-year-old young prince wearing a long gown of golden orange silk (the colour of his princely house) with slashed sleeves, decorated with lace collar and cuffs. He wears a plumed cap of black velvet and stands in a relaxed and elegant pose, gazing to his right as does his dog, as if someone is drawing their attention. Van Dyck deftly indicates the young Prince’s lineage with a symbolic orange tree at the left, while behind hangs a rich tapestry, rendered in flickering brushstrokes, and embroidered with the arms and lion of the House of Nassau.

As court painter to Charles I of England between 1632 and 1641 van Dyck fully revealed his talent for formal portraiture. In his depictions of English aristocrats, the subjects’ lofty status and strong qualities are conveyed not just by pose and attributes, but also by purely painterly features: resonant colour combinations, exquisite texture, free brushwork. A devotion to a grand style that permitted an artistically uninhibited manner became, through van Dyck’s example, a distinguishing feature of English painting.

The sitter of this portrait is the poet Virginio Cesarini (1594-1624). He was one of the most interesting personalities in Rome towards the end of the 1610s, being close not only to Cardinal Maffeo Barberini but also to Galileo Galilei, who dedicated his ground-breaking volume Il Saggiatore to him in 1623. Van Dyck’s portrait reveals tremendous intelligence and sensitivity shining through a frail physique.

This portrait was painted during van Dyck’s stay in Genoa where he became a successful portraitist. According to the inscription, the portrait shows a 32-year-old man. Titian’s influence can be seen in the portrait.

The sitter is probably Amelia of Solms, princess of Orange.

This portrait, half-length in armour, was almost certainly produced during Van Dyck’s stay in Genoa, where the artist is thought to have made several visits during the years 1625 to 1627. Although the identification of the sitter of this painting is uncertain, it has been suggested that the figure is the model for the imaginary portrait of Prefect Raffaele Raggi (active between 1479-1524) in the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The Genoese Raggi were one of the leading families during the foundation of the republic in 1528, a century before the painter’s visit to the city.

This portrait, dated 1618, represents an unknown sitter at the age of 57.

This painting and its companion-piece, Portrait of a Woman, portray a married couple, and they probably formed a diptych the wings of which were connected to each other.

During his extended stay in Italy from 1621 to 1627, spending the majority of his time in Genoa, Van Dyck made his mark as a portraitist, and numbered many important families from the upper strata of Genoese society among his clients. It has yet to be clarified whether or not the Portrait of a Man in Armour with Red Scarf was one of these commissions; various attempts to identify the man in the picture have been inconclusive. It is also possible that the painting is not a portrait but an allegory.

After the years studying in Rubens’s workshop and a sojourn in Italy, Van Dyck settled in his native city of Antwerp and soon became one of the most popular portraitists of the wealthy bourgeoisie. For the most part he painted full-length official likenesses, or else family portraits with the sitters posed in setting of homely intimacy. He devised many different arrangements and poses, suiting them to the character and rank of the sitter, but the effect was always serious, noble and distinguised, and the impression of solemnity and reserve was enhanced by the dark costumes - high-necked black garments with starched ruffs - as in the portrait of the couple in Budapest.

In this picture attention is focused on the sharply characterized faces and expressive, delicately depicted hands, while the black and white of the clothes, the red of the armchair, and the gold of the gloves provide a marvellously harmonious background. We do not know the identity of the married couple, unfortunately, and to discover their connection with any particular Antwerp family seems hardly possible today.

This painting and its companion-piece, Portrait of a Man, portray a married couple, and they probably formed a diptych the wings of which were connected to each other.

Van Dyck executed this painting during his stay in Italy. It represents a young general standing at the entrance of a tent. The sitter of the portrait is unknown, probably he was a member of the Gonzaga family.

This early portrait by van Dyck was painted during the period when the painter was working in Rubens’s studio. The elegant armchair, in gold-embossed leather, is probably the same as that in Rubens’s Portrait of Jan Vermoelen from 1616.

Rubens, Van Dyck and Jordaens, often named in the same breath, are the most prominent artists of the Flemish Baroque. The trio dominated artistic life in the Southern Netherlands throughout the 17th century. All three made an enormous contribution to the fame of the city of Antwerp, but it is Rubens who bears the greatest authority, because he was the most versatile and talented.

The youngest of the three great masters was Anthony van Dyck. He worked with Rubens for a time in his youth, after which he spent most of his career in England and Italy. He was even more admired in England than in his own country, and he had a significant influence upon English painting. Van Dyck’s oeuvre, less varied than that of Rubens, consists mainly of brilliant portraits. His sensitive personality and restless temperament were brought to bear in penetrating psychological studies of members of leading families, the nobility and royalty. His sober Portrait of Marten Pepijn shows the artist as an energetic man of fifty-eight years, depicted in a black jerkin with a refined pleated collar.

The creased drapery in compositions often evidences a great power of expression. Anthony van Dyck seems to have been an influential factor in the development of this kind of abstract idiom. A spectacular example is found in the present portrait. The green drapery held by the woman “behaves” in a remarkable wilful manner - as if the fabric, stirred by the wind, is wrenching itself free of its own volition.

In 1632 Van Dyck entered the service of King Charles I of England. In London he painted the famous portraits of the king and his brothers, including the Portrait of the Princes Palatine Charles-Louis I (1619-80) and his Brother Robert (1619-82).

This portrait was painted in Brussels just a few months after Henrietta of Lorraine (1611–1660) was banished from France. She was forced to flee Nancy, dressed as a man, after being accused of being a collaborator to treason. Henrietta of Lorraine was daughter of Count Fran�ois de Vaud�mont, nephew of duc Henri of Lorraine. In 1632 her younger sister, Margaret, secretly married Gaston, duc d’Orl�ans, the younger brother of King Louis XIII of France.

Van Dyck produced several portraits during his brief stay in the Southern Netherlands in 1634-35. In these he showed as much virtuosity and the same idiom as in the best of his English compositions.

Henrietta Maria of France (1609-1669) was queen consort of England, Scotland, and Ireland as the wife of King Charles I.

This canvas was extended in the 18th century by another hand, possibly Sir Joshua Reynolds, to create a full-length portrait of 224 x 131 cm.

Henrietta Maria of France (1609-1669) was queen consort of England, Scotland, and Ireland as the wife of King Charles I. She had been so delighted with the sculptor Bernini’s bust of her husband, that she was determined to have a companion bust. Van Dyck painted at least two preparatory portraits (one profile and one frontal) in August 1638.

In his painting Samson and Delilah, Anthony van Dyck presents a moment filled with tension — a calm before a storm. Instead of depicting the climax of this Old Testament story, he represented the moment immediately before the action takes place. The heroic Samson is about to have his hair cut — removing the source of his superhuman strength. Lulled to sleep by his lover Delilah, the Philistine guards lie in wait ready to capture and imprison him as soon as the deed is done.

Van Dyck made his own deliberate variations on some of Rubens’s most characteristic compositions of the first years after his return from Italy. Van Dyck’s own interpretation of Samson and Delilah, one of his most imposing creations, would be unthinkable without the example of Rubens’s portrayal of the same subject.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 10 minutes):

Camille Saint-Saens: Samson et Delila, Delila’s aria

King Charles I knighted the Flemish painter in 1632, the chain may be a gift from their royal majesties. The portrait sits within an oval, its neutral background a departure from the allegorical, aristocratic drapes and proto-Romantic landscapes usually adorning his portraits.

After honing his exceptional natural talent in Rubens’s studio, in the early 1620s van Dyck began his career as a society portraitist in Genoa, taking commissions from the local aristocracy while studying the legacy of the Renaissance masters. The young artist’s haughty pose shows unshakeable self-confidence, which had good foundation: his style was already brilliant, both figuratively and literally. His virtuoso brush invests everything - from the material of the cloak to the glowing youthful skin - with the luster of solid prosperity.

The painting represents the painter at 20, although it was painted later. The picture is based on an earlier, now lost, study. There are two other versions of the painting in Munich and in a private collection in New York, respectively.

This self-portrait representing the painter at the age of sixteen is the earliest in the series of self-portraits van Dyck created during his successful career.

Endymion Porter (1587-1649) was a favourite courtier of King Charles I, for whom he bought works of art. His father was a large landowner in Gloucestershire but he was brought up by his grandparents in Spain. He was a judicious collector of pictures, and as the friend of Rubens, Van Dyck, Daniel Mijtens and other painters, and as agent for Charles in his purchases abroad he had a considerable share in forming the king’s magnificent collection.

George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham, also called Sir George Villiers, (1592-1628), was a royal favourite and statesman who virtually ruled England during the last years of King James I and the first years of the reign of Charles I. He was extremely unpopular, and the failure of his aggressive, erratic foreign policy increased the tensions that eventually exploded in the Civil War between the royalists and the parliamentarians.

This painting is van Dyck’s earliest large format religious composition which is based on an earlier painting by his master, Rubens.

The preparatory work for large paintings was not usually confined to one or more oil sketches, but generally included detail studies as well. The Studies of a Man’s Head painted from life by Van Dyck are an excellent example of this.

The attribution of this painting is doubtful. It bears an inscription: P.P. Rubens fecit”.

This painting belongs to the Italian period of the painter.

Van Dyck’s virtuosity in the technique of foreshortening made him particularly appropriate to carry out the ceiling paintings of the Jesuit church in Antwerp. An echo of this lost set of paintings is the Continence of Scipio, which Van Dyck executed shortly afterwards. This is one of the works Van Dyck painted during a short stay in England, where he mainly worked in the service of the Earl of Arundel.

Anthony van Dyck, a Flemish painter who was trained in the workshop of Peter Paul Rubens, painted this work during a long stay in Italy, when he moved from Venice to Mantua where he was a guest at the court of the Gonzaga. This masterpiece, the work of an artist who has now reached maturity and success, still shows signs of the teachings of his master Rubens, visible especially in the rendering of the figures and of their flesh tones. However the sober brushwork and the attention to modelling the effects of light stand out as distinctive features of Van Dyck’s own means of expression, influenced by Venetian painting and in particular by Titian.

The gentle melancholy in the Four Ages of Man represents an unqualified homage to the Giorgionesque style of Titian’s youth. In technique, too, Van Dyck followed the Venetian trend: this and his other Italian works are executed on a dark ground on which his rapid touches of colour acquire a particularly warm glow.