George Gage with Two Men

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.