Portrait of Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio
by DYCK, Sir Anthony van, Oil on canvas, 195 x 147 cm
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.