YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Anthony Van Dyck

PHILIP, LORD WHARTON
/^ M* Imperial Gallery, the Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Anthony Van Dyck
An Historical Study of
his Life and Works

By
Lionel Cust, F.S.A.
Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London
Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts at Antwerp
Chevalier of the Order of Leopold

London: George Bell and Sons
1905

NOTE
This work was first issued in A 900.
In the present re-issue the Lists of
Paintings and a few of the plates
and drawings have been omitted.

CHISWICK PRESS : CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.

t-^OOCc

TO
HENRI HYMANS

INTRODUCTION
IN August, 1899, the city of Antwerp celebrated the third
centenary of the birth of the painter, Sir Anthony Van Dyck,
by a series of festivities which did justice to the best traditions
of Flemish history.
Those persons who were privileged to assist at the special
session of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts at Antwerp on
Sunday, August 13, 1899, when separate addresses were read in
Flemish, English, Italian, German, Dutch and French, in eulogy of
Van Dyck, who also took part in the procession which filed through
the streets of Antwerp to do honour to the painter's memory at
the foot of his statue, and who viewed the pageant in which the
city of Antwerp revived the artistic glories of past generations,
could not help being moved by the thought that such genuine
national enthusiasm should have been evoked by the memory of
one single painter.
The festivities were further enhanced by the opening of a
special exhibition of paintings by Van Dyck, to which Great
Britain, making up for an apparent want of zeal upon this
particular occasion, was the most liberal and the most important
contributor. In this exhibition there were collected together for
the first time the principal paintings of a sacred nature executed
by Van Dyck for the churches of Flanders, and in many cases
remaining in their original positions.
The exhibition at Antwerp was followed in the winter of
1 899- 1 900 by a similar exhibition at Burlington House in London,
in which the absence of the aforesaid sacred paintings was re
dressed by the predominance of many fine works of Van Dyck's
English period.
A careful study of the paintings by Van Dyck shown in these
two exhibitions, together with the drawings, and, at Antwerp, a
most valuable collection of photographs, revealed the fact that the
life of Van Dyck was but imperfectly known and understood, and
vii

INTRODUCTION
that a considerable portion of it required to be revised and re
constituted, a task now rendered possible by the immense assistance
rendered to students in these days by photography.
Up to this date the main facts of Van Dyck's life had been
accepted without questioning, and his paintings classed and grouped
accordingly. The notice of Van Dyck given by Cornelis de Bie in
his ' Gulden Cabinet,' published at Antwerp in 1662, is disappoint
ingly meagre, seeing how near it was to the date of the painter's
death. Raffaello Soprani, the Genoese writer, in his 'Vite de
Pittori, Scultori ed Architetti Genovesi,' published after his death
in 1674, which was amplified and re-edited by the painter Carlo
Giuseppe Ratti in 1768, gives some interesting details of Van
Dyck's early years.
The notice of Van Dyck included by Giovanni Pietro Bellori
in his ' Vite di Pittori, Scultori ed Architetti Moderni,' published
at Rome in 1672, is particularly interesting, inasmuch as part of
the information as to Van Dyck was derived from Sir Kenelm
Digby in person.
The notices in Arnold Houbraken's ' Schouburg der Konst-
Schilders,' published at Amsterdam in 17 18-21, and in J. B.
Descamps's 'Vie des Peintres flamands, allemands et hollandais/
published at Paris in 1753-64, are singularly short and disappoint
ing, and contain many misleading inaccuracies which have gained
authority by repetition.
Vertue, the engraver, notes that he saw: " The life of Vandyke
in manuscrit in several sheets of paper fairly writ by Lady
Lempster, who was at Rome with Lord Lempster . . . this life
is very particular in most parts of his life — Some descriptions of
his works, portraits, etc.— The MS. is in posses11 of Earl of
Pomfret — her Ladyship read it entirely over to me." Unfortun
ately this precious manuscript cannot now be traced.
The general tendency during the nineteenth century to reinforce
history by the investigation and publication of original historical
documents led to the discovery of several small details connected
with the life of Van Dyck which had escaped notice. This
caused fresh ground to be broken in 1 844 by the publication of
Mr. William Hookham Carpenter's ' Pictorial Notices of Sir
Anthony Van Dyck,' a most valuable work, in which, among other
new details, a study was made of Van Dyck's merits as an
engraver. In his preface to this work Mr. Carpenter refers to a
viii

INTRODUCTION
copy of Descamps's ' Vie des Peintres ' with valuable manuscript
notes, especially about Van Dyck, which was then the property of
M. Sylvain van de Weyer, Belgian Minister to the court of
England. This book, it is to be feared, no longer exists, for Mr.
Victor van de Weyer, who has most courteously made a search
for it in his library, fears that it must have perished with many
other of his father's possessions in the disastrous fire at the
Pantechnicon. A valuable volume of manuscript collections for the history of
Van Dyck, compiled during the eighteenth century, it is supposed,
by one Francois Mols of Antwerp, formerly in the possession of
M. Goddd, is now in the Louvre at Paris. Owing to the difficulty
of consulting a manuscript in such a locality, it is very much to be
hoped that M. Lafenestre, or some other eminent French writer, will
make public a rdsurndoi its contents. It was a perusal, however, of
this precious manuscript, which led to the publication by the Quantin
Press at Paris in 1882 of the splendid and sumptuous work in
folio by M. Jules Guiffrey, entitled ' Antoine Van Dyck — Sa Vie
et Son CEuvre.' In addition to the above manuscript, M. Guiffrey
enjoyed the advantage of profiting by the knowledge and research
of four eminent Flemish savants, who by their industrious researches
had thrown so much new light on Flemish art, MM. Max Rooses,
F. Jos. van der Branden, Henri Hymans, and A. Pinchart.
It is no detractation from the merits of M. Guiffrey's book to say
that the most valuable part of his work is due to the information
derived from these four gentlemen, and that their further researches
have so largely supplemented the work as to render M. Guiffrey's
work already out of date.
The publication in 1883 of M. van der Branden's 'Geschie-
denis der Antwerpsche Schilderschool ' marks a new point of
departure for the history of Rubens and Van Dyck, marking out
a road, which has been followed with most valuable results by
MM. Max Rooses and Henri Hymans, and all other writers on
the Flemish school.
An English translation of Guiffrey's ' Van Dyck ' was made by
Mr. Allison, and published in 1896 ; but with the exception of a
small and unimportant biography of Van Dyck, published in 1879
by Mr. P. R. Head in the ' Eminent Artists Series,' no original
work of a comprehensive nature has been attempted by an English
writer since the days of Mr. Carpenter. ix

INTRODUCTION
An unexpected light has been thrown on Van Dyck's life and
work in Genoa by the researches instituted there by Cavaliere
Dott. Mario Menotti, the publication of which was commenced in
the 'Archivio Storico dell' Arti' (Fascicolo iii.), but broken off in
view of their publication in a completer form, translated into
French, in a volume to be entitled 'Vandyke a Genes — Ses
Imitateurs et Contemporains.' Owing to unforeseen circumstances,
the publication of this most valuable volume has been retarded.
In consequence of this the present writer has been unable to speak
with certainty of some obscure points in Van Dyck's career, which
may very likely have been cleared up by the researches of Cava
liere Menotti, whose work must be eagerly expected by all lovers
of Van Dyck.
The interest aroused by the exhibitions of Van Dyck's paint
ings at Antwerp and in London suggested the need for a new
and revised life of the painter in English. The present writer
has sought, by gleaning together the sporadic utterances of such
superior authorities as MM. Rooses and Hymans, Dr. Bode and
Dr. Bredius, Cavaliere Menotti, M. Lafenestre, Mr. Claude
Phillips and others, by having recourse to the information con
tained in the many admirable catalogues which now exist of the
principal picture galleries on the Continent, and by reference to all
accessible authorities, to put together an account of the life and
works of Van Dyck which may do honour to his name, and
perhaps rescue it from what seems to have been a kind of un
deserved neglect during recent years.
There are various kinds of mental temperament required to
produce a satisfactory study of any artist's life and works ; that of a
historian, content to collect facts, and let them tell their own tale,
adding as much interpretation and illustration thereof as may seem
necessary, though mere book-knowledge is a sorry guide to art ;
that of a scientific investigator, whose object is truth, but who,
while patiently dissecting an object to see how it is made or came
into being, is in danger of losing all sense of its beauty or utility,
especially when dealing with a work of art ; that of an artist, who
is solely interested in the technical side of his art, and who, while
declining to admit the opinion of persons who do not possess this
special knowledge, is liable to forget that it is for such persons
that works of art are for the most part made, and that it is on their
judgment, and not on that of artists, that the prosperity and main-
x

INTRODUCTION
tenance of an art chiefly depend ; and that, rarest of all, of the true
critic, who by sympathy discerns instinctively the right and the
wrong, and knows how to distribute commendation and reproof
with an impartial mind, how to praise without undue flattery and
to censure without needless depreciation, and thereby is fitted to
act as a guide to such persons as depend upon some sort of
authority for the formation of their opinions.
To none of these categories can the present writer claim to
belong. If in the first category only he can find a humble post,
he will be content to leave to others, better endowed with the re
quisite knowledge, as well as with leisure and energy, the duty of
solving difficult points in the history of Van Dyck or in the
identification of his actual work, such as the separation of his early
work from that of Rubens, or the actual distinction of copies and
originals in the portraits of his English period.
It is passing bounds of probability to expect that any writer on
art should combine in himself all the aforesaid temperaments at
once. When such a result is nearly attained, the outcome is most
satisfactory, as in the case of the brilliant study of northern paint
ing by M. Eugene Fromentin in ' Les Maitres d' Autrefois,' or in
the powerful studies of Velazquez and Rubens by the late Mr.
R. A. M. Stevenson, which cause a regret that so fine a critic
should not have been spared to make a further study of Van Dyck.
Allusions will be found in the following pages to two articles
contributed by Mr. Claude Phillips to the ' Nineteenth Century'
for November, 1899, and the 'Art Journal' for March, 1900,
which are specially remarkable for the combination of many of the
qualities required as aforesaid.
Finally, a tribute must be paid to the learned and exhaustive
work by Mr. Ernest Law on the paintings by Van Dyck in the
Royal Collections, a work which is a store-house of information in
itself. To Mr. Claude Phillips and Mr. Ernest Law, and
especially to M. Henri Hymans of the Royal Library at Brussels,
the writer wishes to acknowledge a special debt of gratitude.
Thanks are further due to the various noblemen and gentlemen
who have so liberally given permission for paintings to be repro
duced from their private collections, several being now published
for the first time.
Oliphant House, Windsor.
September, 1900. xi

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER IT.

CHAPTER III.

'9
CHAPTER IV. 29
CHAPTER V. 39
CHAPTER VI. 5i
CHAPTER VII. 60
CHAPTER VIII. 72

CONTENTS

(C) Poem by Abraham Cowley on the Death of Sir A. Van Dyck, the
Famous Painter

PAGE

CHAPTER IX.
Van Dyck invited to England — Rinaldo and Armida — Reasons for
leaving Antwerp — Sir Balthasar Gerbier — Arrival in England —
Henrietta Maria and Theodorus Van Dyck — Return to Antwerp —
Paintings for the Court at Brussels — The Cardinal Infant — Return
to Antwerp and England ......... 84
CHAPTER X.
The Portraits of Charles I., Henrietta Maria, and the Royal
Family; Other Paintings by Van Dyck for Charles I ... 97
CHAPTER XL
Van Dyck at the English Court — Mytens and Cornelis Jansen — The
Great Families of Villiers, Stuart, Herbert, Percy, Wharton,
Cary, Wriothesley — The Cavaliers and their Portraits — Laud and
Strafford . . . . . . . . . . . 115
CHAPTER XII.
Van Dyck's Friends at Court — Arundel, Endymion Porter, Inigo
Jones, and others — His Life at Blackfriars — Ladies of the Court —
His Method of Painting — Latest Portraits of Himself — Van Dyck's
Marriage — Death of Rubens — Van Dyck re-visits Antwerp — Van
Dyck at Paris — Return to England and Death of Van Dyck . . 131
CHAPTER XIII.
Will of Sir Anthony Van Dyck — His Widow and her Daughter —
Marriage of his Daughter and Renewal of Pension — Van Dyck's
Assistants and Pupils  147
CHAPTER XIV.
Engraving in the Netherlands — The ' Iconographie' of Van Dyck —
Van Dyck as an Etcher  . , .161
CHAPTER XV.
Van Dyck and his Sitters— The Countess of Sussex— Notes on his
Technique — Van Dyck's Place in Art  ly/^
APPENDIX. (A) Will of Sir Anthony Van Dyck  I93
(B) Poem by Edmund Waller on the Portrait of Sacharissa by
Van Dyck

195196

XIV

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Paintings PAGE
PHILIP, LORD WHARTON  Frontispiece
In the Imperial Gallery, the Hermitage, St. Petersburg.
M. AND MADAME DE WITTE  8
In the collection of M. Arnold de Pret Roose de Calesberg at Antwerp.
THE GOOD SAMARITAN  12
In the collection of Prince Sanguszko, Galicia.
A FLEMISH LADY  14
In the collection of the Earl of Denbigh at Newnham Paddox.
M. VINCK . .  16
In the collection of M. Francois Schollaert, Louvain.
MADAME VINCK  16
In the collection of M. Paul Dansette, Brussels.
FRANS SNYDERS AND HIS WIFE  18
In the Grand-Ducal Gallery, Cassel.
ANTHONY VAN DYCK  20
In the collection of the Duke of Grafton, K.G.
LADY AND CHILD  24
In the collection of Earl Brownlow at Ashridge.
ST. MARTIN DIVIDING HIS CLOAK  32
In the Church of Saventhem (Brabant).
CARDINAL BENTIVOGLIO  36
In the Palazzo Pitti, Florence.
PAOLO ADORNO, MARCHESA DI BRIGNOLE-SALA .... 40
In the Palazzo Rosso, Genoa.
ANDREA SPINOLA  42
In the collection of Captain Heywood-Lonsdale at Shavington, Shropshire.
MUZIO VITELLESCHI  44
Attributed to Van Dyck. In the collection of Lord Battersea, London.
D^DALUS AND ICARUS  46
In the collection of Earl Spencer, K.G., at Althorp.
THE VIRGIN AND CHILD  46
In the collection of the Earl of Ellesmere at Bridgewater House, London.
THE HOLY TRINITY  48
In the Esterhazy Collection, Royal Academy, Buda-Pest.
FRANCOIS LANGLOIS, dit CIARTRES  52
In the collection of William Garnett, Esq., at Quernmore Park, Lancaster.
XV

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE
[PIETER DE JODE THE ELDER AND YOUNGER .... 54
j In the Capitol Gallery, Rome.
LUCAS AND CORNELIS DE WAEL  54
In the Capitol Gallery, Rome.
THE VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA . 58
In the Brera Gallery, Milan.
THE ECSTASY OF ST. AUGUSTINE ....... 60
In the Church of St. Augustine, Antwerp.
THE CRUCIFIXION  62
In the Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp.
THE CRUCIFIXION  64
In the Cathedral of St. Rombaut, Mechlin.
THE LAMENTATION OVER CHRIST  66
In the Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp.
THE BETRAYAL OF CHRIST  68
In the collection of Lord Methuen at Corsham.
ANNE MARIE DE QAMUDIO, WIFE OF FERDINAND DE BOIS-
SCHOT, SEIGNEUR DE SAVENTHEM ...... 74
In the collection of the Due d Arenberg at Brussels.
MARIA LUIGIA DI TASSIS  76
In the Liechtenstein Collection, Vienna.
FRANS VAN DER BORCHT  78
In the Ryksmuseum, Amsterdam.
ANDREAS COLYNS DE NOLE, SCULPTOR, AND HIS WIFE . . 80
In the Royal Gallery, Munich.
A HUSBAND AND WIFE  82
In the Esterhazy Collection, Royal Academy, Buda-Pest.
RINALDO AND ARMIDA  84
In the collection of the Duke of Newcastle at Clumber.
THOMAS, PRINCE DE SAVOIE-CARIGNAN  9o
In the Royal Gallery, Turin.
BEATRICE DE CUSANCE, PRINCESSE DE CANTE-CROIX . . 92
In the Royal Collection, Windsor Castle.
PRINCE CHARLES LOUIS AND PRINCE RUPERT OF BAVARIA . 92
In the Louvre, Paris.
CESARE ALESSANDRO SCAGLIA  94
In the collection of Captain Holford at Dorchester House, London.
CHRIST ON THE KNEES OF HIS MOTHER  95
In the Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp.
CHARLES I  , ,,98
In the National Gallery, London.
CHARLES I AND HENRIETTA MARIA .  I03
In the collection of the Duke of Grafton, K.G.
CHARLES I  I04
In the Louvre, Paris.
HENRIETTA MARIA WITH GEOFFREY HUDSON THE DWARF 108
In the collection of Earl Fitzwilliam, K.G., at Wentworth Woodhouse.
xvi

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

In the Royal Collection, Windsor Castle.

Drawings

PACK

THE THREE CHILDREN OF CHARES I  no
In the Royal Gallery, Turin.
THE FIVE CHILDREN OF CHARLES I  112
In the Royal Collection, Windsor Castle.
VENETIA, LADY DIGBY  114
In the Royal Collection, Windsor Castle.
MARY VILLIERS, DUCHESS OF RICHMOND, WITH MRS. GIBSON
THE DWARF  116
In the collection of the Earl of Denbigh at Newnham Paddox.
LORD JOHN AND LORD BERNARD STUART  118
In the collection of the Earl of Darnley at Cobham Hall.
GEORGE DIGBY, SECOND EARL OF BRISTOL, AND WILLIAM,
FIRST DUKE OF BEDFORD .  124
In the collection of Earl Spencer, K.G., at Althorp.
JAMES STANLEY, SEVENTH EARL OF DERBY, AND CHARLOTTE
DE LA TREMOUILLE HIS WIFE, WITH THEIR DAUGHTER 128
In the collection of the Earl of Clarendon at The Grove.
THOMAS WENTWORTH, EARL OF STRAFFORD, AND HIS
SECRETARY, SIR PHILIP MAINWARING  130
In the collection of Earl Fitzwilliam, K.G., at Wentworth Woodhouse.
THOMAS HOWARD, EARL OF ARUNDEL, AND HIS GRANDSON 134
In the collection of the Duke of Norfolk, K.G., at Arundel Castle.
THOMAS KILLIGREW AND THOMAS CAREW . . . ¦ i<8

o1

THE VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH THE ABBE SCAGLIA . . .158
In the collection of Miss Alice de Rothschild.
ALBERT, DUC D'ARENBERG  184
In the collection of Earl Spencer, K.G., at Althorp.
ARCHBISHOP LAUD  189
In the collection of Earl Fitzwilliam, K.G., at Wentworth Woodhouse.

THE BETRAYAL OF CHRIST, after Titian  30
From the original in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, K.G., at Chatsworth.
GROUP FROM PHARAOH IN THE RED SEA, after the Woodcut by
Titian  32
From the original in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, K.G., at Chatsworth.
SOFONISBA ANGUISSOLA AND AUTOGRAPH NOTE BY VAN
DYCK  50
From the original in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, K.G., at Chatsworth.
STUDY FOR THE PORTRAIT OF CHARLES I IN THE NATIONAL
GALLERY  100
From the original in the British Museum.
ANTHONY VAN DYCK  160
From his own etching.
ADAM DE COSTER. STUDY FOR THE 'ICONOGRAPHIE ' . . 164
From the original in the British Museum. xvii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

CASPAR GEVARTIUS. STUDY FOR THE 'ICONOGRAPHIE' . . 166
From the original in the British Museum.
LUCAS VORSTERMAN  A 168
From an etching by Van Dyck.
A FARMYARD SCENE  172
From the original in the British Museum.
TWO HERALDS, STUDY FOR THE PROCESSION OF THE
KNIGHTS OF THE GARTER  180
From the original in the Albertina Collection at Vienna.
THE CRUCIFIXION  182
From the original in the British Museum. :a£a a

XVI 11

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
CHAPTER I
Rubens and the Flemish School of Painting — Birth and Parentage of Anthony Van
Dyck — Van Dyck in the studio of Van Balen — Early paintings by Van Dyck
ON August 27, 1576, the great sun of Titian's genius set for
ever at Venice. The rays of this glorious sunset, the close
of a life that had known no winter, nothing but the beauty
of spring, the fulness and plenty of summer and autumn, irradiated
the whole world of art with gorgeous hues and strange wonderful
forms of cloud and sky, as when a traveller should stand upon the
Zattere at Venice, and gazing across the burning lagoon, should
watch the sun going down behind the tomb of Petrarch in the
Euganean Hills. For years to come that sunset lasted through
Italian Art. The dawn, however, of a new day was to break else
where. On June 28, 1577, there was born north of the Alps a
painter destined to fill for the ensuing generation the throne of
authority that the mighty painter of Cadore had left vacant. That
painter was Peter Paul Rubens.
The Flemish school of painting had already passed through a
period of glory and renown. Under the brothers Van Eyck, under
Memlinc, Hugo Van der Goes, Gerard David and others, the
Flemish artists had reached a high-water mark of painting, similar
to that attained by the Tuscan artists in the south. But the secret
of their art lay in its medievalism. Their art belongs to the period
of the great northern cathedrals, to the days of choirs and cloisters,
of jewelled windows and illuminated missals. It deals with an age
of chivalry and reverence, of pilgrimages and tourneys, of heraldry
and romance. The service of the Church is strangely blended
with the mystic lore of wizards and philosophers, and the story of
Christ, though supreme and triumphant, has still to leave a
considerable share in the popular imagination to the Sagas of the
north. But when the bonds of the Middle Age were loosed, and
the novel air of the Italian Renascence, fragrant with the aftermath
1 B

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
of classical antiquity, was once breathed by the artists of the north,
a new era began, one in which Rome became the seat not only
of the Church, but also of the Fine Arts, and the fount from
which alone, as it was thought, true inspiration could be imbibed.
The last rays of Titian's sunset had faded from the sky, and from
out of the growing night of Italian art shone forth again the twin
beacon-lights of painting, the two immortals, the Dioscuri of art,
Raphael and Michelangelo. Attracted by the brightness of those
lights, the birds of passage came from every country and every
clime, and dashed and battered their plumes in their futile attempts
to attain to, even to see and comprehend, the serene perfection of
Raphael or the terrible grandeur of Michelangelo.
The northern artists suffered perhaps more than any others.
Endowed by traditions of race and family with facile skill, great
industry and unflagging spirits, they poured forth acres of fatuous
and insipid pseudo-classical imitations of Raphael's paintings, both
sacred and profane, or else let their undoubted talent run riot in
exaggerated transcripts of Michelangelo, such as make comic the
works of Goltzius, Sprangher, or Marten van Heemskerk. On
this downward path the descent of Flemish art was arrested by the
supreme genius of one man, Rubens, who, while remaining a
thorough Fleming to the backbone, turned his face away from the
artificial lights of Rome towards the true sunlight of Venice.
Surely one ray from Titian's sunset must have fallen on the cradle
of the infant Rubens in the north. By the immense power of his
genius and the monumental solidarity of his art-work, Rubens not
only brought to a close the era of medievalism and Renascence,
but he also personally inaugurated a new era of Modern Painting,
an era which was to open with the splendid genius of Velazquez,
of Van Dyck and Jordaens, of Rembrandt and Frans Hals, an era
to which no term has as yet been put even at the dawn of the
twentieth century.
Antwerp, the city which Rubens made his home through life,
was peculiarly well adapted, like Venice, to be a home of the arts.
As one of the great commercial centres of the world, its waterways
were among the highroads of civilization. Although the city of
Antwerp never enjoyed a position of autonomy and independence,
such as marked the prosperity of Venice and Genoa, it enjoyed,
under the rule of the Hapsburgs, a distinct position of its own.
The Flemish character is a strong one, and remained undiluted

RUBENS AND THE FLEMISH SCHOOL
by that of its Spanish or Austrian governors. The sturdy
independence of its burghers, their great wealth, and the world
wide nature of their commerce, made Antwerp the most precious
jewel in the crown of the Holy Roman Empire. Had it not
been for the terrible strife of religions, and the misguided if honest
attempts by the agents of the Church of Rome to stifle or stamp
out the irrepressible growth of the reformed religion, Antwerp and
the other cities of the Netherlands might have enjoyed unbroken
prosperity. The Hapsburg race was one well fitted to rule the
world. In secular matters they showed wisdom and often liberality,
while from the days of Maximilian to the present day, they have
displayed a real interest in the promotion of the arts, and the general
progress of science and learning. Only in the cause of religion
did they show themselves unbending, tyrannical and even cruel.
In the hands of the Church they were as wax, and the banner
of Christ, when raised by them, became a symbol of persecution
and oppression, if not of actual slaughter and even crime. The
proud and lofty nature of the Austrian and Spanish princes and
grandees was lavish and magnificent in its patronage. The arts
were by no means the least to profit from this, and the genius of
Rubens thus found a vent and a support, as a short time later did
the kindred spirits of Velazquez and Van Dyck.
At Antwerp painting was regarded as one of the most honour
able trades. Its Guild, that of St. Luke, was among the foremost
in the city. Given natural gifts of industry and talent, it was as
likely for a youth to turn his mind towards painting as a trade,
as towards any other more recognized branches of a commercial
career. At that date the burgher families of a city like Antwerp
seldom looked for their helpmates in life beyond the walls of their
city, and the sons and daughters of artists intermarried freely with
those of the mercers, wine merchants, notaries, and the like. There
were probably few families who did not rank one or more artists,
if not in their own circle, at all events within that of their relatives,
so that a hereditary disposition to art was easily acquired and
widely disseminated.
Among the busy merchants at Antwerp in the middle of the
sixteenth century was one Antoon Van Dyck, who travelled, in
the commercial sense, in silk and other articles of haberdashery.
In 1576, at the time of the terrible massacre known as 'The
Spanish Fury,' he occupied a house, called 'den Hercules,' in
3

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
the Maanstraat on the south side of the Grootmarkt, which
fortunately for him was too small to billet soldiers in, and so
probably escaped looting and destruction. By 1579 he was able
to purchase a better house just off the Grootmarkt, opposite to
the Hoogstraat, known as Men Berendans.' Here he died on
March 3, 1580. His widow, Cornelia Pruystincx, carried on
his business there until her death in 159 1. A portrait of her is
preserved in the Estense gallery at Modena. She was succeeded
in 'den Berendans' and the mercer's business by her elder son,
Frans Van Dyck, her other children being a son, Ferdinand, and
a daughter, Catharina, married to Sebastian De Smit.
Frans Van Dyck had entered into partnership with his
brother-in-law, De Smit, in 1588, his mother holding the chief
share in the business with a venture of 6,000 gulden, while each
of the partners contributed 4,800 gulden apiece. Their business
was extensive, as merchants of silk, linen, woollen, and kindred
materials, and was chiefly transacted in Amsterdam, Paris,
Cologne and London. They seem to have been prosperous and
successful, and to have amassed a fair amount of wealth.
Frans Van Dyck married, in 1587, Maria, daughter of Jan
Comperis and Anna Viruli, his wife, but she died in 1589, after
giving birth to a son, Jan, who did not survive. A few months
later Frans Van Dyck took a second wife, Maria, daughter of
Dirk Cuypers (or Cupers) and Catherina Conincx, his wife. This
marriage proved happy and fruitful. Children came fast, first a
son, Frans, and five daughters. The seventh child was a boy, born
in the house 'der Berendans,' March 22, 1599, and baptized the
next day in the great cathedral, being named Antoon (Anthonis)
after his grandfather. On Christmas Day following the birth of
Antoon Van Dyck, his parents removed to 42 Korte Nieuw Straat
and settled in a house known as 'het Kastel van Ryssel.' On
March 3, 1 60 1, they changed this house for No. 46 in the same
street, known as ' De Stat Gent.' Five more children followed
Antoon, four daughters and a son, Theodorus, but the birth of the
twelfth child in 1607 cost their mother's life.
Very little is known about the childhood of Antoon Van
Dyck. There is nothing known of his family antecedents to
suggest a hereditary tendency to art, but tradition has handed
down that his mother was particularly skilled in the art of
¦embroidery. As she died when Antoon was but eight years of
4

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE
age, this cannot have had any great effect upon his future career.
The ledgers of the Guild of St. Luke, however, contain some
entries of the name of Cuypers, which may refer to relatives of
Van Dyck's mother. In 1575 one 'Heynrick Cuypers' is
entered as 'huysscilder,' and as 'meestersone.' In 1608 one
' Servaes Cuypers ' is presented as ' leerjonger ' by ' Robbert
Berck, huysscilder,' and the same Servaes Cuypers was in 1609
admitted as ' meester,' and described as ' bourduerwerker.'
Possibly he may have been a brother of Maria Cuypers, who was
also skilled in ' bourduerwerk.'
Frans Van Dyck was not only a busy merchant, but he, like
others of his calling, had a share in the administration of the
cathedral, holding the post of director of the Chapel of the Holy
Sacrament in the Cathedral. He seems to have had a close
connection with the religious orders, for of his other children his
youngest son became a priest, one daughter, Anna, a nun, and three,
Susanna, Cornelia, and Isabella, became bdguines. The family
lived a well-to-do, cultivated life. They were fond of music and
owned a clavichord, made by the famous Ruckers, which became
the property of the eldest son, Frans Van Dyck, the younger.
The father never remarried, but in 16 10 he exposed himself to the
attacks of one Jacomina de Kueck, who not only published violent
libels on him, but threatened to take his life, so much that Frans
Van Dyck had to seek the protection of the law, with the result
that the irate lady found herself in gaol.
If, however, the immediate family of Antoon Van Dyck cannot
be shown with any certainty to have had any actual professional
relations with the fine arts, it is certain that the friends with whom
they chiefly associated were artists. It was with the families of
Brueghel, Snellincx, De Jode, and De Wael, that Van Dyck's
earliest years are connected. These families were closely related by
marriage ties. Taking that of De Jode first, the earliest engraver
of that name, Gerard de Jode, was the father of that Pieter de
Jode, the elder, whose engravings rank among the finest of the
Antwerp School. Gerard's sister Helena was the first wife of
Jan Snellincx, the painter. Snellincx married as his second wife
Paulina Cuypers, who may have been related to the mother of Van
Dyck. One of Gerard de J ode's daughters, Gertrude, was the wife
of Jan (or Hans) de Wael, the painter, and mother of the brothers
Lucas and Cornelis de Wael ; and another daughter, Elisabeth,
5

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
was the wife of Jan Brueghel, the famous painter. This Brueghel,
' Fluweelen ' or ' Velvet ' Brueghel, as he was called, was highly
esteemed at the court of the regents, Albert and Isabella of
Austria. In his landscapes Brueghel often collaborated with
another painter, Hendrik van Balen. Hendrik van Balen was a
typical painter of the Flemish School, when it showed signs of
decaying into the graces and insipidity of an Italianised pseudo-
classicism. He had been with Rubens a pupil of Adam van
Noort, and remained in close friendship with his great con
temporary throughout life. It is perhaps a mere commonplace
of art-history to say that the best art-teachers are usually but
second- or third-rate practitioners themselves. Van Balen was a
consummate master of the technical side of his art, and, if he
failed to produce any painting of importance or celebrity himself,
he has attained immortality as the master, first of Frans Snyders,
and then of Antoon Van Dyck.
One may assume without much difficulty that the young boy,
Van Dyck, after receiving the usual education of a wealthy burgher's
son, displayed quickly his disposition to painting, and that it was
at the advice of Jan Brueghel that he was placed as a pupil in the
studio of Hendrik van Balen, where he was joined shortly after
wards by his bosom friend, Jan Brueghel, the younger. In 1609
Hendrik van Balen was Dean (Opperdeken) of the Guild of
St. Luke at Antwerp, and among the apprentices (leerjongers),
inscribed in the guild that year, was ' Antonius Van Dyck,' entered
by Van Balen himself, It is noteworthy that on the same day
another boy was inscribed as ' leerjonger,' 'Jooys Soeterman,'
afterwards to be well known as Justus Suttermans, court-painter
to the Grand Duke of Tuscany at Florence, and a friendly rival
to Van Dyck in Italy.
The style and manner of Rubens had already begun to
dominate the painting-schools of Antwerp. The sugared puer
ilities and the bombastic monstrosities of the decadent Flemish
painters, even the Northern realism of the Brueghels, the true
parents of the later Dutch School, were swept away or submerged
by the colossal wave of Rubens's genius. Only Rubens was
possible in Antwerp, and the young student learnt to imitate and
copy him in every respect. Even such painters as Cornelis
Schut, Theodore Rombouts, Gaspar de Crayer, who sought to
pose as rivals to Rubens at Antwerp, found themselves compelled
6

EARLY PAINTINGS
to challenge the painter upon his own field, one on which they
were easily vanquished for all time. It is easy to suppose that the
boy Van Dyck was present in the cathedral in 1610 at the age of
eleven, when the great painting of ' The Elevation of the Cross '
by Rubens was first unveiled, and again two years later, when the
even more celebrated painting of ' The Descent from the Cross '
was revealed to the sight of an enthusiastic multitude. The effect
upon Van Dyck's impressionable temperament must have been
immense, and is evinced in many ways during his subsequent
career. In Van Balen's studio the influence of Rubens was naturally
paramount, and it is easy to understand how the young Van Dyck
began from his tender years to try and tread in the footsteps of his
great compatriot. It is uncertain, however, how long the boy
remained in Van Balen's studio. His progress must have been
rapid, and his development as a painter precocious, for it is
recorded that in 161 3, at the age of fourteen, he painted a portrait
of an old man that in 1804 was in the collection of one
M. Joseph Antoine Borgnis at Paris.
In 161 5 the young Van Dyck was living and working inde
pendently of his father at a house called ' den Dom van Keulen,'
in the Lange Minderbroeder Straat (now the Mutsaert Straat) at
Antwerp. This appears from lawsuits in 1 6 1 7 and 1 6 1 8, concerning
the division of his grandmother's property. It is remarkable that
Van Dyck, although under age, was specially permitted to plead
himself, as being a person of independent means and position.
In 1660 one of the Canons of the Cathedral at Antwerp
purchased a set of thirteen paintings by Van Dyck, representing
* Jesus Christ and the Twelve Apostles,' the authenticity of which
paintings was called into question. This led to a lawsuit, during
the course of which some interesting evidence was given by the
painter, Jan Brueghel, the younger. Brueghel stated that he had
been the most intimate friend of Van Dyck in his youthful days,
and that they had lived together in the same house, ' den Dom van
Keulen.' There the young Van Dyck had painted this series of
heads, for one of which old Pieter de Jode, the engraver, had sat.
Moreover the series had been copied there by a youth, one
Harm en Servaes, apparently a pupil of Van Dyck, although the
latter was but sixteen or seventeen years old. Possibly Harmen
was a son of the Servaes Cuypers mentioned before, and a relative
7

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
of Van Dyck, so that the young men were really living together
as a kind of family party. These paintings excited so much
interest that they were exhibited in the gallery at Antwerp
belonging to Willem Verhagen, a noted connoisseur and art-
dealer, where they were visited by many of the leading burghers
and artists, including the great Rubens himself. Fragments of
this series of Christ and the Apostles are to be found in the
Gallery at Dresden, in the Royal Palace at Schleissheim, and
in the private collections of Earl Spencer at Althorp and
M. Adolphe Thiem at San Remo. The whole set was engraved
by Cornelis van Caukerken.
These paintings brought the young painter quickly into notice,
but it is difficult to assign any works with certainty to this
period of his career. Portraits he no doubt painted, as one of the
easiest footsteps to fortune for a young artist. He tried his hand
perhaps at history. Under any circumstances, Van Dyck was in
February, 1 6 1 8, admitted to the freedom of the Guild of St. Luke
at Antwerp, an unusual distinction for so young a man. He was
also admitted through his father to the freedom of the city of
Antwerp. Very soon after, Van Dyck began his connection with
Rubens.

8

M. AND MADAME DE WITTE
In the collection of M. Arnold de Pret Roose de Calesberg at Antwerp

CHAPTER II
Van Dyck in the Studio of Rubens— Difficulty of distinguishing their Works — Early
Portraits by Van Dyck
IT would seem quite clear that Van Dyck was never in any way
a pupil or apprentice of Rubens. There is no evidence to show
that, among the host of young artists working in the schools of
Van Balen and others, the boy Van Dyck had been singled out
for notice by the great painter, their ideal monarch, until the
exhibition of the series of Apostles in Verhagen's gallery. Van
Dyck's early admission to the Guild of St. Luke shows that he was
looked upon as a finished painter. Rubens himself did not keep
a painting-school for youths. What he required was a number of
skilled assistants to aid in the work of the vast picture-manufactory
over which he presided. In the great house, which Rubens built
for himself at Antwerp, he divided his work, as it would appear,
between a special studio of his own, to which no one was admitted,
and one or more large studios, in which his assistants were engaged
on drawing out or laying the colour of those vast decorative
compositions, sacred and profane, with which the name of Rubens
is usually associated.
It was the practice of Rubens at the zenith of his career to
make a sketch of his composition in lightly coloured monochrome.
This was handed to his assistants, who then drew it out on the
canvas according to the required scale, and laid in the colours to a
greater or less extent, as the master directed. The paintings were
in most cases actually finished or corrected by the master's own
hand. Rubens, in his letters to Sir DudleyCarleton and others,
is careful to distinguish between the paintings which were wholly
the work of his own hands, or chiefly that of his assistants and
finished by him, or really carried out by his assistants alone.
Obviously Rubens depended a great deal upon the skill of these
young men, and that he was well served is shown by their
names, which included men afterwards so well known as Erasmus
Quellinus, Abraham van Diepenbeck, Jan van Hoecke, Theodor
van Thulden, with the landscape-painters Jan Wildens and Lucas
9 c

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
van Uden, and also Justus van Egmont and Pedro van Moi, who
carried the tradition of the Rubens School to Paris, and helped to
plant upon it the Royal Academy of France. ^
Van Dyck was already noted for the precision of his draughts
manship and his mastery of the technical side of his art, although
certain mannerisms were even now to be detected. To Rubens
such an assistant would be invaluable, while to a young painter, the
introduction to Rubens's studio insured a speedy recognition by
the public. It was there that the art-patronage of the Netherlands
found its chief centre. Other painters vied with Rubens for this
patronage, Jordaens, Gaspar de Crayer, Theodor Rombouts,
Cornelis Schut, but they could never even shake the foundations
of Rubens's pre-eminence.
According to the art-historian Bellori, Van Dyck was first
employed by Rubens to make reduced copies of his paintings
for the engraver to copy. ' The Battle of the Amazons ' being
specified as one copied by Van Dyck in this way for the engraver,
Lucas Vorsterman. This was work requiring great though some
what mechanical skill and precision. Bellori also states that Rubens
employed Van Dyck not only in copying, but also in drawing out
great cartoons from his sketches. Among these latter works was
a series of large cartoons, designed for tapestry, representing ' The
History of the Consul Decius Mus.' These cartoons were not
only drawn out but also painted by Van Dyck, and now hang in
the Liechtenstein Gallery at Vienna.
Rubens had spent several years, when young, in Italy, and
resided for a great part of these at the court of the art-loving
Gonzagas at Mantua. Unlike his compatriots and contemporaries,
Rubens studied the works of Titian, Tintoretto, Correggio, and
Leonardo da Vinci in preference to the academical models of
Raphael and Michelangelo. In this he showed himself the
precursor of a new age and a new spirit or afflatus in painting.
Many were the copies of these great masters which Rubens had
collected at Antwerp, and he had also obtained some fine examples
of their original work. It can hardly be doubted that it was in the
house of Rubens that Van Dyck first came under the influence
and felt the inspiration of Titian and the Venetian painters. This
influence is shown in the very earliest historical paintings by Van
Dyck, some of which he is credited with having completed before he
entered the studio of Rubens. The earliest of these is supposed to
10

VAN DYCK AND RUBENS
be a painting representing ' The March to Calvary,' which forms
one of a long series illustrating the Passion of Christ, commissioned
in 1617 for the Dominican Church of St. Paul at Antwerp, where
the pictures still hang. Damaged as the picture is, it is easy to
discern certain faults which are characteristic of a painter's
immaturity, such as the over-crowding of figures, the faulty dis
position of planes, the lack of atmosphere and space. On the
other hand, in this crude painting one can discern in the finely
modelled heads the promise of the painter's future success in
portraits. Again, the treatment of the nude is special to Van
Dyck. The draperies are massed in great heavy folds, like
Rubens', but have not his motion and vigour. They serve rather as
the ground upon which the nude portions of the figures are thrown
out and enhanced as the principal mass of light, a thoroughly
Italian motive, and one in great contrast to the suffused and broken
radiations of light which fill a painting by Rubens in every corner.
The colours are deeper and more opaque than is usual with
Rubens, and generally with Van Dyck present a richer and more
glowing effect. In this painting, too, appears that intensity of
feeling and expression, both religious and human, which is absent
from the more frankly sensuous and mundane compositions of the
elder painter.
Another painting of the same date is the remarkable representa
tion of ' The Good Samaritan,' belonging to Prince Sanguszko at
Podhorce in Galicia. The same faults appear in this picture, the
crowded figures and mistakes in composition, but the same merits
also appear, the fine expression in the heads, and the powerful treat
ment of the nude. The skill shown in the modelling of the nude
torso and limbs in these pictures is a tribute to the good training
which Van Dyck must have received in the school of Van Balen,
where the Italian tradition of Michelangelo may be presumed to
have still had some force. A preliminary sketch for ' The Good
Samaritan' belongs to M. Bonnat of Paris. In the painting the
composition is completed by the head of a spirited white horse,
and this motive forms a link with a picture of ' St. Sebastian
bound to a Tree ' in the Munich Gallery, where a white horse is
introduced with a similar effect. In this picture the same crudities
and faults of composition occur, but the nude figure of the youthful
saint is admirably posed in silhouette against the dark tree and the
bronzed bodies of the executioners. This figure, in the head of
11

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
which may be traced the lineaments of the young painter himself,
is a good instance of the sensitive refinement with which Van
Dyck always treated the nude figure, affording another contrast to
the unrestrained pleasure which Rubens took in depicting the
naked human form, revelling in the more animal side of humanity,
the texture of the skin, the pulsation of the blood, the folds of the
flesh, everything, in fact, which denotes la joie de vivre. Van
Dyck was more of a gourmet in his appreciation of beauty, his
taste was selective and particular, so that in his treatment of the
nude he could be sensuous without being coarse, and voluptuous
without descending into vulgarity, thus escaping the reproaches
with which posterity has met the works of Rubens, Jordaens,
Rombouts, and other Flemish masters. This is illustrated in a
curious way by a painting of ' Susanna and the Elders,' also in
the Munich Gallery, in which the chaste matron defends herself in
such a way as to excite a possible doubt as to whether it be her
virtue or her clothes which she considers to be in peril.
It is difficult to establish with any certainty the relations
between Rubens and Van Dyck. The life of the elder painter
shows that his character was large and noble, and, as in his paint
ings his ideas were always on a large scale, so in his life he was
incapable of anything mean or petty. Conscious of his own
unassailable pre-eminence, he could afford without loss of dignity
to take a kindly and paternal interest in those artists, painters,
engravers or sculptors, who came beneath his sway. Between
Rubens and Van Dyck affectionate relations seem to have been
maintained from the outset, and, if any jealousies or sensations
of rivalry were ever felt, it is more likely that they would have
originated with the rather feminine and self-appreciative mind of
Van Dyck than with the broad and generous character of Rubens.
It can hardly have been without the consent and approval of
Rubens that Van Dyck was able not only to become a skilful
imitator of his master's style, but also to paint a number of repeti
tions, more or less exact, of Rubens's paintings, which form one of
the most difficult problems for modern art critics to decide. In
some cases, where exactly similar compositions exist, it is not
difficult to discern between the works of the two masters, since the
versions by Van Dyck, which, if considered as originals, might
have excited well-placed admiration, fall short of the originals by
Rubens in vigour of conception or execution, even if they add a
12

THE GOOD SAMARITAN
In the collection of Prince Sanguszko, Galicia

VAN DYCK AND RUBENS
touch of expression and intensity, something of an ideal which the
elder master often fails to give. At Dresden, there are side by
side large paintings of ' St. Jerome in the Desert,' by Rubens and
Van Dyck, in which it is easy to see the superiority of Rubens.
Another ' St. Jerome,' after Rubens, is in the Liechtenstein Gallery
at Vienna, which also contains a " Burial of Christ," with some fine
effects of foreshortening and great pathos of expression, but derived
as a composition entirely from a similar painting by Rubens in the
gallery at Antwerp. Closely allied to this is the painting of ' The
Dead Christ,' in the Royal Gallery at Munich, with the same
rather exaggerated intensity of pathos and expression.
In the case of the ' St. Ambrose and the Emperor Theodosius,'
in the National Gallery, it is easy to see that this is a little more
than a reduced copy of the large picture of the same subject in the
Imperial Gallery at Vienna, though the alterations in the design
are rather to the credit of the younger painter.
It is more difficult to speak with certainty of a few paintings
which have for many years been attributed to Rubens, but in which
the hand of Van Dyck appears to be all-pervading. The most
important, perhaps, of these is the great canvas representing ' The
Raising of the Brazen Serpent,' in the Prado Gallery at Madrid,
which bears a large signature of Rubens, its very size being a cause
for suspicion, but appears to be entirely the work, if not entirely
the composition, of Van Dyck.
It is certain that Van Dyck ranked highest among the assist
ants of Rubens. There is a well-attested tale, told by Edelinck,
the engraver, to Mariette, the great collector, which narrates
that one day, when Rubens was out for his morning ride on the
banks of the Scheldt, his assistants persuaded his housekeeper to
let them have the key of his private studio, where there was an
unfinished picture, according to Mariette that of ' The Virgin with
St. Sebastian and other Saints,' for the high altar of the August
inian church at Antwerp. One of the young men, it is said
Diepenbeck, was unfortunate enough to injure the painting, to the
dismay of all, for it was a piece of flesh-painting, which no one
of them could replace. Their only hope lay in Van Dyck, who
repaired the injury. Rubens, however, discovered the alteration
at once, but was generous enough to acknowledge the excellence
of Van Dyck's work, and to allow it to remain as it was upon the
picture. 13

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
Again, in March, 1620, the Father Superior of the Jesuits in
Antwerp, Francois d'Aiguillon, entered into ^ a contract with
Rubens to supply a series of thirty-nine paintings for the new
church of the Jesuits at Antwerp, in the designs for which Rubens
had a large share. The Father Superior stipulated that all the
sketches should be made in small by Rubens himself, but that they
should be completed by Van Dyck, whom he named especially,
and the other assistants, according as the subject or place demanded.
Further, the Father Superior promised to Van Dyck that he
should paint one of the pictures for the smaller altars in the church
with his own hand.
To estimate the share due to Van Dyck, in any of the com
pleted paintings by Rubens, is a task in which only a patient and
careful student could hope to succeed. Even M. Max Rooses of
Antwerp, who has made a life-study of the life and work of Rubens,
speaks with an uncertain note upon the subject. Dr. Wilhelm
Bode, in an important study of the works of Rubens and Van
Dyck in the Royal Galley at Berlin, discerns the hand of Van
Dyck in such important works by Rubens as 'The Raising of
Lazarus,' at Berlin ; ' The Feast in the House of Simon,' in the
Hermitage at St. Petersburg; 'The Last Supper,' in the Brera
Gallery at Milan ; and ' The Miraculous Draught of Fishes,' in
the church of Notre Dame at Mechlin. A small sketch or copy in
grisaille of the last-named picture, now in the National Gallery,
can be safely attributed to Van Dyck, and may perhaps be one of
the studies made by him to be handed to the engraver. Rubens
brought back from Italy the taste for large paintings of mythology
or ancient history, and Van Dyck seems to have adapted direct
from Rubens the ' Drunken Silenus ' of the Dresden Gallery, and
the often-repeated ' Jupiter and Antiope,' the best versions of which
are in England, belonging to the Earl of Wemyss at Gosford, and
to Mr. Edward F. Pye-Smith. In the 'Jupiter and Antiope,'
however, the Italian influence is strongly felt. The painting of
'Achilles in Scyros,' in the Prado at Madrid, was admitted by
Rubens to be the work of one of his " best pupils," almost certainly
Van Dyck, and to have been worked over by Rubens before
delivery. A version of this picture of inferior value, belonging to
the Earl of Listowel, is perhaps entirely the work of Van Dyck.
It is possible that the numerous studies of heads, so fine in
character and expression, which are to be found in many collections,

A FLEMISH LADY
In the collection of the Earl of Denbigh at Newnham Paddox

EARLY PORTRAITS BY VAN DYCK
and seem in most cases to be the work of Van Dyck, were studies
made by Van Dyck in the studio of Rubens, and utilized by his
master in his great pictures. Among such studies may be reckoned
the various sketches of a ' Negro's Head,' the best and most striking
of which is the splendid set on one canvas in the Royal Gallery at
Brussels, where it ranks among the finest of the works attributed to
Rubens. Some other important sketches of a negro are in the
collection of the Earl of Derby.
Bellori narrates how Rubens perceived that Van Dyck was
acquiring much skill in imitating his style, and was showing tend
encies of a desire to become a rival, so that in order to divert him
from this object he encouraged Van Dyck to paint portraits, and
extolled his assistant so highly as a portrait-painter that many visitors
to Rubens's studio were moved to have their portraits taken by Van
Dyck. This has been construed into a proof of jealousy upon the
part of Rubens, who is credited with dissatisfaction at the growing
reputation of Van Dyck. There is no reason for such a suspicion.
Rubens may have felt it inconvenient to have so advanced an
assistant, who might wish to be a rival, but he can hardly have
feared any serious competition. On the other hand, an artist of
Rubens's age and experience could not have failed to see that the
genius of Van Dyck was to be found in the domain of portraiture,
and was therefore justified in trying to steer the young painter into
the proper course.
Although the special genius of Van Dyck for portraiture was
displayed quite at the outset of his career, it was not likely that in
this branch of art Van Dyck would at once strike out a path for
himself, different from and independent of his contemporaries.
Rubens had already established a fine tradition in portraiture,
although his portraits, like those of Titian and Tintoretto, excel in
the first place as paintings, and are only in a less degree dependent
on their fidelity in transmitting a likeness or interpreting a character.
Considering the close relations between Rubens and Van Dyck,
it is not surprising to find that many portraits which have been
credited to Rubens, are in reality the work of his young and brilliant
assistant. Among these are the portraits of an old burgher and his
wife in the Dresden Gallery, dated 1618, the year in which Van
Dyck entered the studio of Rubens ; the portrait of another burgher,
in the Brussels Gallery, dated 16 19 ; and the portrait of a lady hold
ing a rose, in the gallery at Cassel. The researches of a careful
15

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
expert, such as M. Rooses or Dr. Bode, would no doubt reveal
among the portraits generally ascribed to Rubens many others
which should safely be credited to Van Dyck : such as, for instance,
the portrait said to be that of Rubens's brother Philip, in the
collection of Sir Francis Cook at Richmond, or the well-known
portrait of Caspar Gevartius in the Museum at Antwerp. But it
is probable that Van Dyck was also influenced by the portraits
painted by Cornelis de Vos, which are remarkable for many of the
qualities shown in the earlier portraits by Van Dyck, though they
have nothing of the grace and elegance which are usually associated
with the name of Van Dyck. It should be noted that Cornelis de
Vos was brother to Paul de Vos, the animal-painter, and to Mar-
garetha, the wife of Frans Snyders; and -also that his own wife
was step-sister to Jan Wildens, the landscape-painter, a friend and
fellow-pupil of Van Dyck: so that Cornelis de Vos may be reckoned
among the circle of friends and acquaintances among whom Van
Dyck was brought up. Many of the early portraits by Van Dyck
can with difficulty be distinguished from those by De Vos, as, for
instance, in the case of two portraits in the Museum at Antwerp
which bear the name of De Vos but may be by Van Dyck.
De Vos also seems to have been the originator of the family
portrait, which theme Van Dyck subsequently developed with such
conspicuous success.
The early portraits by Van Dyck are marked by a great
simplicity of costume, especially in those of men, who wear for the
most part plain black clothes, and a ruff folded in flat pleats. The
heads are modelled in a marvellous way, showing that at the age of
nineteen or twenty Van Dyck had mastered completely the most
important side of the portrait-painter's art. It is on the head, and
the character expressed therein, that the portrait depends entirely for
its effect. This is particularly well shown in the famous portrait
of Cornelis van der Geest, a noted amateur and patron of the arts at
Antwerp, which is one of the most highly prized treasures of the
National Gallery. In this the art of the portrait-painter seems to
reach its highest point, and yet it is the work of a painter at the
latest in his twenty-first year. With this portrait may be linked
that of Jan Brueghel, the elder, in the Munich Gallery, remarkable
for the fine modelling of the hand; the double portrait of the
painter Hans de Wael and his wife, also in the Munich Gallery; the
portraits of an elderly lady and gentleman, belonging to Count de
16

M. VINCK
In the collection of M. Francois Schollaert, Louvain ^

MADAME VINCK
In the collection of M. Paul Dansette, Brussels

EARLY PORTRAITS
la Faille de Leverghem at Antwerp; the portraits of M. and
Mme. de Witte, belonging to M.Arnold de Pret Roose de Cales
berg at Antwerp, and the fine companion portraits of Nicolas
Rockox, nine times burgomaster of Antwerp, and his wife, in the
collection of Prince Serge Stroganoff at St. Petersburg.
In the portraits of ladies Van Dyck shows a closer affinity,
perhaps due to the costume, to the portraits by Cornelis de Vos.
The younger ladies are clad in rich dark brocade or figured silk
dresses, open so as to show very rich bodices embroidered on a
gold ground. They usually wear a circular ruff, pleated ih stiff
vertical folds, and rich lace cuffs at the wrists. Their hair is drawn
back tightly from the forehead, and bound by a jewelled or richly
ornamented cap or fillet at the back of their head. They wear rich
bracelets, or gold chains round their waists, and have every appear
ance of health, riches, and prosperity. Two portraits of young
Flemish ladies in the Liechtenstein Gallery at Vienna are good
examples of this style of portrait. More sedate is the charming
lady who sits in a large chair, in the portrait belonging to the Earl
of Denbigh at Newnham Paddox (erroneously called Lady Kynel-
meeky) ; while on a more grandiose scale Mme. Vinck sits at full
length with the air of an arch-duchess, this painting being in the
possession of M. Paul Dansette of Brussels, a companion to the fine
full-length of M. Vinck, in the collection of M. Schollaert at Louvain.
One lady, ' Anna Maria de Schodt,' stands at full length, an un
comely dame, with something more of Jordaens about the portrait
than of the refined and elegant Van Dyck. The composition is
sometimes varied by the introduction of a child, this pleasing group
being well shown in the ' Lady and Child ' in the Hermitage at
St. Petersburg, sometimes known as ' Suzanne Fourment and her
daughter Catherine' (often attributed to Rubens), and the fasci
nating ' Lady and Child ' with the laughing baby in mauve silk,
which belongs to Earl Brownlow at Ashridge. But in some of
these portraits there is an Italian note, which must be alluded to
hereafter. Foremost among Van Dyck's friends was Frans Snyders, the
animal-painter, whose delicate wistful face Van Dyck took a special
pleasure in painting. Van Dyck painted him and his wife, Mar-
garetha De Vos, together in one picture, now in the Cassel Gallery;
also companion portraits of Snyders and his wife, which were
formerly in the Orleans Collection, and are now separated, the
17 D

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
portrait of Snyders finding a home in the collection of the Earl of
Carlisle at Castle Howard, and that of his wife at Warwick Castle.
A noble head of Snyders alone is in the Liechtenstein Gallery at
Vienna. A beautiful family group of three heads in the Hermitage
Gallery at St. Petersburg, called ' Snyders and his Family,' perhaps
represents Van Dyck's friend, Jan Wildens, of whom he painted a
fine head, now in the Gallery at Cassel. A group in the collection
of Lord Barnard at Raby Castle, called ' Snyders and his Wife,'
probably represents one or other of the painters De Vos and his
wife, and may be the work of Cornelis de Vos.
Among the various commissions which Rubens was wont to
receive from the Regents, the Archduke Albert and Isabella Clara
Eugenia, were equestrian portraits in the manner of an apotheosis
of Isabella's father and grandfather, Philip II. of Spain and the
Emperor Charles V. A portrait of this description representing
Philip II. is among the pictures by Rubens at Windsor Castle.
Another of these, that of Charles V. on a white horse with the eagle
of fame above him was clearly inspired by Titian and painted by
Van Dyck : it is now in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence. If Van
Dyck is also to be credited with a share in the picture by Pieter
Snayers in the Royal Gallery at Munich, representing the battle
of ' Martin l'Eglise,' it may be presumed that it was in his youth
that his co-operation was secured.

18

FRANS SNYDERS AND HIS WIFE
In the Grand-Ducal Gallery, Cassel
. :.<ti xi jlVj. acik rei

CHAPTER III
Portraits of Van Dyck by Himself— The Earl and Countess of Arundel— Van Dyck leaves
Rubens — First Visit to England — Return to Antwerp and Departure for Italy —
Arrival at Genoa — Visits to Rome, Florence, and Venice
VAN DYCK had now grown his wings, and was ready to fly.
Precocity had given place to adolescent maturity. At the
age of twenty-one the painter is ready to take his place
among the great artists of the world. It is easy to form a picture
of the youthful Van Dyck's appearance at this age, since throughout
life he was his own model or sitter on several occasions. In the
gallery of the Academy at Vienna there is a portrait of a youth,
evidently by Van Dyck, in which his own features can be dis
cerned. A fresh and delicate face, well-formed features, the nose and
chin well-shaped, the mouth somewhat sensuous, though obstinate
in character, light chestnut-coloured hair falling in waving clusters
over his forehead and about his ears, a suggestion of a feminine
rather than a virile type — such are the general characteristics
of the face, which altered but little during life. He was short of
stature, and of slender figure. His hand was long and sensitive,
with straight fingers almost parallel to each other, a hand which
it is easy to recognize in many of his portraits. The lack of
virility is further shown by the slow growth of the hair on his
face, for even at twenty-one his cheeks appear as smooth as
those of a boy of sixteen. His own portrait can be recognized,
according to M. Hymans, in a series of sketches, representing a
youth playing on a flute, in the Prado Gallery at Madrid. The
portrait is more clearly defined in similar paintings of a year or
two later, belonging to the Duke of Grafton and the Duke of
Devonshire, in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg, and in other
collections, a smaller version of which is in the National Gallery,
and in the portrait of himself in the Munich Gallery, where he
appears already as the possessor of a golden chain of honour. The
portraits throughout life bear out the painter's character, such as
can be learnt from his life and works. Van Dyck betrays a nervous
and obstinate disposition. He is ambitious, quick to learn, appro-
19

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
priate, and assimilate the ideas of others; never quite content with or
confident in his own supreme genius for portrait-painting, ever ready
to receive some new emotion in painting ; indolent and luxurious
in his life, but at the same time strongly individual, proud, and sen
sitive ; quick to feel a slight or take offence, and careless of giving
offence to others. With such feminine traits in his character, Van
Dyck presents a strong contrast to his master, Rubens, and his
other Flemish friends and contemporaries.
It was not likely that so uneasy a spirit would remain long in
a position of inferiority or subordination. A suitable exit front
Rubens' studio was provided for Van Dyck by an English lady,
Alethea Talbot, wife of that Thomas, Earl of Arundel, who is
renowned throughout the history of art as one of the greatest
amateurs and art-patrons that have ever existed. Arundel was
well known in the Netherlands, and had already had dealings with
Rubens. He may himself have noticed the young Van Dyck, but
there is nothing to prove this. In June, 1620, the Countess of
Arundel left England intending to take her two sons to Italy for
their education. She arrived in Antwerp and made some stay
there, in order that a double portrait of her husband and herself
might be painted by the great Rubens. It is clear that Arundel
did not accompany her, for on July 17 one of her suite, writes to
the earl from Antwerp (in Italian) as follows :
" Most illustrious Lord and Reverend Patron,
" Immediately on my arrival in this city I presented your
Lordship's letter to Signor Rubens, the painter, who received and
perused it with evident marks of satisfaction. I give you his reply :
' Although,' said he, ' I have refused to execute the portraits of many
princes and noblemen, especially of his Lordship's rank, yet, from
the Earl I am bound to receive the honour which he does me in
commanding my services, regarding him, as I do, in the light of an
evangelist to the world of art, and the great supporter of our
profession ' ; and with other * similar expressions of courtesy, he
proceeded to make arrangements for her Ladyship's sitting to him
on the following morning. He has already sketched her likeness
with Robin the dwarf, the fool, and the dog. The sketch, however,
still requires some trifling additions, which he will make to-morrow,
and on the following day her Ladyship starts, with the intention of
sleeping at Brussels. It so happened that, when Rubens began
20

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
In the collection of the Duke of Grafton, K. G. ..,

i

THE COUNTESS OF ARUNDEL
his work, he was unable to lay his hand on a piece of canvas
sufficiently large for his purpose. Having drawn the heads, there
fore, as they should be, he sketched the postures and draperies of
the figures on paper, and finished a separate drawing of the dog :
but he has ordered a canvas of the proper size to be prepared, and
will himself copy what he has done, and send the copy with the
original sketches to your Lordship. He assures the Countess that
he will paint no person, unless by your Lordship's recommendation.
Van Dyck is always with Signor Rubens, and his works are
beginning to be scarcely less esteemed than those of his master.
He is a young man of one and twenty, with a father and mother
in this city who are very rich, so that it is difficult for him to quit
these parts, all the more because he sees the fortune which Rubens
is enjoying." It is evident from this letter that the Earl and Countess of
Arundel were persons of great importance in the eyes of Rubens,
and that their attention had been drawn to his brilliant young
assistant. The portrait of the Earl and Countess of Arundel, with
their dwarf, fool, and dog, is now in the Royal Gallery at Munich.
May it not be supposed that, after the preliminary sketches by
Rubens referred to in this letter, Rubens handed over the group
to Van Dyck to complete ? There is much in the painting to
remind one of Van Dyck. Also Rubens, in sending the picture
to Arundel in England, may have been responsible for the next
important event in the life of Van Dyck, his first' visit to England,
in which it is clear that Arundel was concerned.
The next piece of information comes from Sir Dudley Carleton,
the friend and correspondent of Rubens, who seems to have
commissioned Tobie Matthew, a well-known political agent, to
obtain some painting by Van Dyck. Matthew writes to Carleton
from Antwerp on November 25, 1620, saying:
"Your Lordship will have heard how Van Dike his famous
Allievo is gone into England, and that the Kinge hath given him
a Pension of £ 100 per annum. I doubt he will have carried the
desseigne of this piece into England ; and if he have, I durst lay
my payre of hands to a payre of gloves, that he will make a much
better Piece than this is for halfe the money that he asks. Perhaps
I am deceaved ; but I thought it fitt to tell your Lordship playnly
all that I knowe, or feare in this ; though I doubt not but your
21

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
Lordship will dexterously governe the knowledge of it, for else this
fellow will flye upon me. Yet please your selfe, for I am at a
poynt." It is evident from Matthew's letter that "this fellow," even at the
age of twenty-one, was by no means an easy person to deal with.
Painting in England was not an indigenous art. Holbein had
for a few years figured at the court of Henry VIII. and rendered
it immortal. In the latter part of the sixteenth century the artists
chiefly employed by the court and nobility came from the Nether
lands, who brought over with them the traditions of the Spanish
court, with its stiff portraits at whole length in rich costume, such
as were painted in Spain by Alonso Sanchez Coello, and in the
Netherlands by Anthonis Mor and Pourbus. England did not
afford a field for artists of the first rank ; and costume, armour, and
other accessories tended to occupy the chief interest of the portrait
to the exclusion of the likeness. This is specially to be noticed in
the portraits of Queen Elizabeth, who may have enjoined the
practice upon those who were allowed to paint her likeness. The
queen is known to have had her views upon portrait-painting, as
well as on politics or religion. Hence arose a school, headed by
Marcus Gheeraerts, the younger, who are chiefly remarkable for
their skill in rendering the rich costumes of their sitters. With
the accession of James I. an advance was made by the employment
at court of two rival artists, Paul van Somer of Antwerp and
Daniel Mytens of the Hague. Both these painters carried on the
traditions then required in England, but their works are an
improvement on their predecessors. Both Van Somer and Mytens
produced portraits of great dignity and excellence, even if they
display but little imagination. Whereas Mytens had a predilection
for soft grays and low tones, Van Somer, on the other hand, was in
clined to deep reds and browns. Van Somer also excelled in the
portions of landscape which he introduced into his backgrounds.
Politics were rather strained at the court of James I. The
new favourite, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, was by nature
inclined to resent and try to undermine the influence of older
counsellors, such as the Earl of Arundel, whose austere dignity
and anchorite habits were in strong contrast to the flashy brilliance
of Buckingham. With the king, however, it was the brilliance
which prevailed. Buckingham, moreover, tried deliberately to rival
Arundel, and even outdo him, both as an art collector and as a
22

FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND
patron of artists. It would seem that Van Somer was the painter
affected by Arundel, while Mytens was attached to the household
of Buckingham. In 1620 Van Somer was sick to death, and it
may have been this which moved Arundel to negotiate for the
removal to England of the brilliant young Van Dyck, as a rival
to Mytens and as a counterblow to Buckingham. Van Dyck
probably required some security before he left his prosperous
quarters at Antwerp. Hence the king was induced by Arundel
to give the young painter a pension, as a member of the royal
household. The visit to England was, however, but a short one, and it is
uncertain how Van Dyck was employed. James I. was not a
connoisseur of painting, like his sons Henry and Charles, but he
liked having his portrait painted, and distributed the likeness of the
royal Solomon broadcast. When Van Dyck came to England
James had lately lost his royal consort. It is certain that at some
time or another Van Dyck painted for the King of England full-
lengths of James I., Queen Anne, and Henry, Prince of Wales, all
of them copies from whole length portraits by Paul Van Somer.
The original portraits, with the copies by Van Dyck, still remain
in the royal collection. It may have been for these services that
Van Dyck received payment from the king by an order dated
February 16, 1 620-1, to pay
" To Anthony Vandike the some of one hundred pounds by
way of reward for speciall service by him performed for his
Matie without accompt imprest or other charge to be sett
upon him for the same or for anie part thereof."
Twelve days later, on February 28, a pass was issued,
" for Anthonie Van Dyck, gent, his Maties servaunt to travaile
for 8 months he havinge obtayned his Maties leave in that
behalf as was sygnified by the E. of Arundell."
Nothing more is known of Van Dyck's first visit to England.
He probably painted the portrait of his patron, the Earl of
Arundel, perhaps the noble seated portrait now in the collection
of the Duke of Sutherland at Stafford House. Van Dyck may
have been disappointed at the employment given him by the king.
He seems to have insisted upon having his pension of ^100 paid
down to him at once, and in its entirety. Probably in his desire
23

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
to emulate the fame and fortune of Rubens, he informed Arundel
of his wish to follow in his master's footsteps and complete his
education as a painter in Italy. Arundel may have oh the strength
of this obtained the king's leave for Van Dyck to be absent for
eight months, and furthermore an advance of the painter's whole
pension for the year. It would seem under any circumstances that
the king expected him to return.
Van Dyck returned to his native city of Antwerp as the servant
of a king, and it is improbable that he resumed his place in the
studio of Rubens. His visit to England was not entirely without
effect, for something of Van Somer can be traced in the portraits
which can be attributed to the next few months, especially in the
landscapes introduced into the backgrounds. Van Dyck is said
to have visited on his way back both Paris and the Hague, but
there is no evidence to support this. He probably returned straight
to Antwerp, and if no longer willing to act as an assistant to
Rubens, it may have been during the next few months that he
painted the various copies from Rubens, to which allusion has been
made in a former chapter. Portraits, too, were no doubt greatly
in demand. A proof of his intimacy with Rubens and his
household is shown by the remarkable portrait which Van Dyck
painted of Rubens's first wife, Isabella Brant, which is now in
the Hermitage Gallery at St. Petersburg. This portrait contains
also a view of the great arch and portico which formed the approach
to the house of Rubens through the garden. Scandal has not
hesitated to suggest, on the slightest possible grounds, that the
charming young painter seemed to Rubens to be too much of an
attraction to the lively Isabella, and that for that reason Rubens
did his best to hasten the projected journey of Van Dyck to Italy.
The eight months' leave accorded to Van Dyck by James I.
had actually expired before the painter really set forth upon his
travels. Rubens was himself about to start, if he had not already
done so, for that journey to Paris which resulted in the famous
series of paintings done for Queen Marie de Medicis in the
Palais de Luxembourg. The two painters parted on affectionate
terms. Van Dyck painted a portrait of himself and Rubens
together, which he presented to his master, in addition to the portrait
of Isabella Brant and other paintings from his hand. Rubens
in return is said to have given to Van Dyck the best horse in his
stables, and Rubens was no mean judge of horses.
24

LADY AND CHILD
In the collection of Earl Brownlow at Ashridge

JOURNEY TO ITALY
On October 3, 1621, Van Dyck left Antwerp in company with
Cavaliere Giovanni Battista Nani, a Venetian by birth and a friend
of Rubens. They spent a few days at Brussels, and thence
proceeded to Genoa, where they arrived on November 2 1 follow
ing. Genoa ranked with Venice and Antwerp among the great
maritime centres of commercial activity. Both at Genoa and at
Venice there was a large colony of merchants from the Netherlands
and Germany. Many young artists, who found their native city
overstocked with men as competent or more successful than them
selves, thought it profitable to remove to some place like Genoa,
where they would find a sufficient number of their compatriots to
insure employment and reward. Among the Flemish artists who
had settled in Genoa were two brothers, Lucas and Cornelis deWael,
sons of the painter, Hans de Wael, and Gertruyt de Jode, the friends
with whom Van Dyck had been so intimate in his youth. His early
comrade, Jan Brueghel, the younger, either accompanied Van Dyck
to Genoa, or was already residing there when he arrived. Rubens
had spent some time at Genoa about twenty years before, and the
memory of his presence there would insure a hearty welcome to one
so strongly recommended by Rubens as Van Dyck.
Among his compatriots, therefore, Van Dyck would feel himself
to be no stranger in Italy. His mind was already full of the
wondrous creations of Titian and Paolo Veronese, which he had
seen in the house of Rubens. His impressionable nature lent
itself readily to the influence of Italy and Italian art. The patricians
and merchant princes of Genoa provided in their palaces plenty of
material for the youthful artist to study and admire.
Although it was the ambition of Van Dyck to excel as a
painter of history, and the journey to Italy was undertaken with
this object, it may be imagined with reason that it was by portrait
painting that he obtained the ways and means for prosecuting his
travels and his studies. During his first short stay at Genoa he
probably painted some of those portraits of his fellow-countrymen,
which combine the true and unmistakable manner of the Flemish
school with something of the noble dignity and rich colouring of
the Italians. It is possible that some of the portraits alluded to
in a previous chapter may have been done in Genoa, such as the
portrait of a lady, belonging to the Earl of Denbigh, and the lady
and child, belonging to Earl Brownlow, for the latter picture was
purchased in Genoa by Sir Abraham Hume. The portraits of
25 E

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
M. and Mme. Vinck, mentioned before, are on a scale and conceived
in a manner different from that of the usual Flemish school. They
may be compared with the two large and important portraits, said to
be those of one Bartolommeo Giustiniani and his wife, with whom
Van Dyck is said to have lodged on his first arrival at Genoa.
These two portraits were brought from Genoa with others in 1828
by Mr. Andrew Wilson, and passed into the collection of Sir Robert
Peel, whence they were sold in the summer of 1900 for ^"24,250
the pair ! With these also may be classed the important portrait of
' A Syndic,' belonging to Mme. Edouard Andre" at Paris, which
like the others mentioned combines a somewhat homely vigour,
almost like that of Jordaens, with the calm solemnity of a Titian.
Before entering into any further inquiry as to the paintings
executed by Van Dyck at Genoa and elsewhere in Italy, it will
be of assistance to try to trace his actual wanderings. There
has been, and is still, some considerable difference of opinion as
to the exact sequence of Van Dyck's travels. They would seem
to have been traced, with some degree of certainty, by Cavaliere
Mario Menotti, although his conclusions are not entirely in con
sonance with those handed down by Bellori and writers of an
earlier date.
According to Cavaliere Menotti, Van Dyck would appear to
have left Genoa in February, 1622, and gone by sea to Civita"
Vecchia on his way to Rome. The Eternal City, Urbs as it was
known to fame, was still the goal for artists of every description.
Van Dyck, however, like his master, resisted the temptation to
waste his time in academical studies from Raphael and Michel
angelo. Rome, therefore, afforded him but little attraction, and he
soon left for Florence. At Florence he found an old friend of his
boyhood, Justus Suttermans, who had been entered as a boy-pupil
in the Guild of St. Luke at Antwerp on the same day as Van
Dyck. Suttermans was now court painter to Ferdinand de'
Medicis, Grand Duke of Tuscany, for whom he painted a series
of portraits of remarkable excellence, such as Van Dyck might
have painted himself had his character been less impressionable,
and less open to absorb the lessons derived from the studies of the
great Venetian masters. Van Dyck painted a portrait of Sutter
mans, and afterwards etched it himself for the ' Iconographie.' At
Florence, too, Van Dyck probably met a man, who had a strong and
peculiar influence on him later on in life, namely, that strange English-
26

VISIT TO ROME
man, Sir Kenelm Digby,then on travels which lasted for some years.
From Florence Van Dyck went to Bologna, where he was
introduced to the great schools of the eclectic painters, and found
in the studied graces and elaborate artifices of Guido Reni and the
Carracci much that was fascinating and stimulating to a would-be
rival of ^Rubens. From Bologna he went to Venice, which may
be imagined to be the goal that he most desired to reach. Here
he found his former patroness, Alethea, Countess of Arundel,
residing for the education of her two sons. Van Dyck was now
in the home of Titian, Tintoretto, and Paolo Veronese, and the
painter, who could pass through the Sistine Chapel or the Stanze
of the Vatican unmoved, now spent several months in zealous
and unremitting study of the paintings which had loomed so long
and so largely on the horizon of his mind.
When finally he quitted Venice, he visited Mantua, and recalled
to the court of the Gonzagas the splendid memory of Rubens
and his residence with them. Though Van Dyck's stay at
Mantua was short, he received from Ferdinand Gonzaga a rich
chain of gold, which is shown in the portrait of himself now in the
Royal Gallery at Munich already noticed. In the Palazzo Sauli-
Visconti at Forli there is a portrait of Marchesa Bulgarini of
Mantua attributed to the hand of Van Dyck. From Mantua Van
Dyck returned to Rome, which he reached early in 1623, perhaps
at the wish of Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio, a member of the ruling
family at Bologna, who had returned some two or three years since
from several years' service as Papal Legate in the Netherlands,
and was a great admirer of Rubens and his school.
Rome was a perfect caravanserai of artists. They came and
went, some mere birds of passage, like modern tourists, others to
spend a fixed period of serious work and study, others with no very
definite aim, except that of retailing from the great masterpieces
there some copies or reminiscences of the works of art which they
so greatly admired and so often failed to comprehend. The artists
from the Netherlands had a social circle of their own, and they
brought with them the habits of the north, the jovial and noisy good
fellowship of the tavern, the coarse and careless relations with the
female sex, and other social amenities, which assorted but ill with
the venerable ruins of Imperial Rome, or the refined splendour of
the Papal surroundings.
Van Dyck, as a Fleming, was welcomed as a new boon
27

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
companion, but when they found that the elegant and languid
youth, still beardless, with his fine clothes, a curled feather in his
velvet cap, a gold chain round his neck, two or three servants in
his train, looked down upon them as vulgar roisterers, and shunnecj
the tavern for the palace, and the society of his compatriot artists
for that of cardinals and princes, they turned on him, and partly
from jealousy of his undoubted skill as a painter, partly from the
undisguised contempt which this superior young man showed for
their society, they determined to make life as unpleasant for him
at Rome as possible, and succeeded in their object. The pittor
cavallerescoy as they nicknamed him, is all very well as an elegant
young popinjay ; he can cringe to a cardinal, they said, and kiss
the hand of a princess, but he can neither draw nor paint. In
spite of all proofs to the contrary, such as the magnificent and
famous portrait of Cardinal Bentivoglio, now in the Pitti Gallery
at Florence, life at Rome was made intolerable to Van Dyck, and
shaking off the dust of the Eternal City, he returned to Genoa,
where he was more likely to be able to live and paint as he desired.

28

CHAPTER IV
The Chatsworth Sketch-Book — Influence of Titian — Early Paintings in Italy — St. Martin
— Van Dyck at Venice, Rome, and Genoa — Cardinal Bentivoglio
IF it be difficult to trace with certainty the course of Van Dyck's
travels in Italy, it is no less hard a task to establish with any
degree of confidence both the nature and sequence of the
paintings executed by him during his five years' stay. Fortunately a
relic has been preserved which is of the greatest importance in any
critical study of Van Dyck's work at this date. This is a sketch
book, obviously used by the painter in Italy, and containing very
few original compositions, but chiefly his studies and reminiscences
of the great Italian masters.
This little book was once in the possession of Sir Peter Lely,
and, after passing through various hands and undergoing unexpected
vicissitudes of ownership, it now remains in the collection of the
Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth. A companion volume, similar
in size and full of drawings of a rather similar nature, reveals itself
on inspection to be the work of Daniel van den Dyck, a painter
and engraver of a later date and mediocre quality. The ascription
of this second sketch-book to the great painter is an obvious
supercherie, not necessarily to be traced to the said Van den Dyck
himself. The sketch-book is the most precious record of Van Dyck's
trend of thought at the time of his visit to Italy. It contains notes
taken at Milan, Genoa, Rome, Venice, and elsewhere, and many
of the paintings recorded by him remain to this day among the
most famous masterpieces of painting. At Milan Van Dyck notes
Leonardo da Vinci's ' Last Supper ' and ' St. Anne,' and Raphael's
' Repose in Egypt.' At Rome he makes a few studies after Raphael,
and others after the antique painting in the Aldobrandini palace
known as ' The Marriage of Alexander and Roxana.' He sketches
at Rome, in 1621, the curious figures of the Persian envoy, the
Englishman, Sir Robert Shirley, with his Circassian wife. He
painted two fine portraits of these remarkable people which are
now in the collection of Lord Leconfield at Petworth. He buys
29

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
engravings by Albrecht Diirer and others, or sketches those he
meets with in other collections. Giorgione, Sebastiano del Piombo,
Pordenone, and others claim his attention from time to time.
He sketches figures from daily life in Venice. But it is Titian
who dominates the whole sketch-book, Pensieri di Titiano occur
throughout, the only painter at all coming near him in importance
being Paolo Veronese. Titian at Genoa, Titian at Rome, Titian
at Venice, it is always Titian at whose feet the young painter places
himself in adoration.
His time at Venice seems to have been spent in the study of
paintings by Titian and Paolo Veronese. There are notes of such
well-known paintings by Titian as the ' Pesaro ' altar-piece in the
Church of the Frari ; the ' Presentation of Giovanni Pesaro, Arch
bishop of Paphos, to St. Peter by Pope Alexander VI.' (the
well-known ' Baffo ' of the Antwerp Gallery) ; the ' Ecce Homo' of
the Louvre; the ' St. James ' of the Church of S. Lio at Venice,
the ' Presentation of the Virgin ' in the Accademia at Venice ; the
'Bacchanal' at Madrid; the 'Three Ages,' probably the version
at Rome which he notes as called ' L'estate la primavera
e l'inverno ' ; the ' Tobit and the Angel ' of S. Marciliano at
Venice ; the so-called ' Portrait of Lavinia ' now at Dresden ; the
so-called 'Venus and the Organ-player' at Madrid; and many others.
At Rome he sketches the so-called ' Sacred and Profane Love '
and ' The Education of Cupid,' in the Borghese Gallery, and the
famous portrait of 'Pope Paul III. and his Farnese Nephews,'
now at Naples. At Genoa he makes a note among other paint
ings by Titian of the seated figure of ' Cardinal Antonio Pallavicini.'
At Venice he sketches various paintings by Paolo Veronese,
including some of the ceilings in the Ducal Palace, and the two
pictures of ' Le Respect' and ' L' Infidelity,' which lately passed
with others from the collection of the Earl of Darnley to the
National Gallery.
On examining the later paintings by Van Dyck, especially those
taken from sacred history, it is easily perceived to what an extent
Van Dyck was indebted to these notes from Titian and Paolo
Veronese for certain motives in his future work. In three cases
the question is one of peculiar interest, as it refers to certain paintings
which are usually ranked among the early and more youthful works
of Van Dyck. One of the most important of these is the great
painting of ' The Betrayal of Christ,' two separate versions of
30

THE BETRAYAL OF CHRIST, after Titian
From the original in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, K.G, at Chatsworth

2 •?

%

A Jj

EARLY PAINTINGS IN ITALY
which exist in the Prado Gallery at Madrid, where it is known
as * El Prendimiento,' and in the collection of Lord Methuen at
Corsham, in addition to a brilliant preliminary sketch in the
collection of Sir Francis Cook at Richmond. In the Chatsworth
sketch-book there is a drawing of the same composition, which is
stated to be after Titian. Although it is not impossible that Van
Dyck may have seen such a transcript in the collection of Rubens,
it is not likely that he would have troubled to note the picture il
he had already painted the same subject three times. The sketch
and the version at Madrid have both some points of resemblance,
especially in its dramatic energy, to the interesting painting of
' The Stoning of St. Stephen,' which Van Dyck painted for the
Church of the Spaniards at Rome, whence it was removed to Spain
by the well-known Godoy, Prince of the Peace, and at the dispersal
of his collection passed into that of Lord Egerton of Tatton. The
Corsham version of 'The Betrayal' may be a later repetition, painted
after Van Dyck's return to Antwerp. The Madrid version is usually
reckoned to be the painting of the same subject which Rubens
received as a present from Van Dyck before he left Antwerp for
Italy, and which he valued so highly as to give it a special place of
honour in his house. A further rendering of the same subject on
the lines of the sketch-book drawing is preserved in a drawing at
Weimar, which appears to be that etched by Pieter Soutman.
The second painting to which the question refers is that of ' Christ
crowned with Thorns,' two versions of which exist, one in the
Royal Gallery at Berlin, the other in the Prado Gallery at Madrid.
This composition, which is full of passion and dramatic vigour, is
certainly based on a similar composition by Titian. This is further
borne out by the occurrence in the Chatsworth sketch-book of
various transcripts from the figure of the suffering Redeemer noted
by Van Dyck as by Titian. This painting has always been
reckoned among Van Dyck's youthful works. In the painting at
Berlin the figure of a Roman or Gallic soldier is introduced, a
reminiscence of the series of paintings representing the history of
the Consul Decius. This figure is removed in the painting at
Madrid, which is in every way superior. The painting at Berlin
came with two others from the Abbaye de Dunes near Bruges, and
had originally belonged to a convent of Brigittine nuns at Hoboken.
It cannot, therefore, be identical with a version of the same picture,
which is said to have come originally from the Balbi palace at
3i

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
Genoa to the Netherlands, and may with some reason be thought
to have been painted by Van Dyck at Genoa, and repeated in later
years, perhaps for Philip IV. of Spain, when his art was more mature.
The same observations may be made upon a painting which
through a certain flavour of romance has become one of the most
famous creations of Van Dyck and one of the most puzzling and
oft-debated questions in his career. Until quite recent years a
legend had been accepted that the handsome and impressionable
young Van Dyck had on leaving Antwerp for Italy stopped at
the village of Saventhem, near Brussels, where he had become
enamoured of a young maiden of great beauty called Anna van
Ophem. So strong was his passion that he lingered there until
Rubens sent messengers to extricate Van Dyck from these toils, and
despatch him to Italy. Before leaving Saventhem, as the story
goes, Van Dyck painted for the church there two pictures, one
of ' St. Martin dividing his Cloak,' the other a 'Holy Family,'
into which he introduced portraits of his fair charmer and her
family. The latter picture was destroyed in 1672 by the French
troops, but the former picture is still cherished by the village of
Saventhem, where the pretty story remains a pious tradition that
no person would dare to challenge. But modern criticism has
destroyed its credibility. Apart from the fact now ascertained that
Van Dyck left Antwerp in October, 1621, and arrived at Genoa
some six or seven weeks later, documentary evidence connected
with the commune of Saventhem has revealed that the paintings
were commissioned at a much later date by Ferdinand de Bois-
schot, Comte d'Erps and Seigneur de Saventhem, a distinguished
statesman and diplomat. The painting of ' St. Martin ' in itself
presents some interesting features in connection with Van Dyck's
sojourn in Italy. As in the two previous cases there are at least
two separate versions of this painting, one at Saventhem, the other,
amplified and matured, in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle,
where it still hangs as the work of Rubens. A small painting
which appears to be a preliminary sketch is in the collection of
Captain Holford at Dorchester House. In all these pictures the
graceful figure of the youthful saint is the same with some slight
variations in the attitude. The sketch at Dorchester House shows
a more crowded composition, the scene with the beggar taking
place at the entry of a town, all in that manner of Rubens, which
Rubens himself seems to have taken from the works of Elsheimer.
32

ST. MARTIN DIVIDING HIS CLOAK
In the Church of Saventhem [Brabant)

GROUP FROM PHARAOH IN THE RED SEA
AFTER THE WpODCUT BY TiTIAN
From the original in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, K.G., at Chatsworth

ST. MARTIN
In the Saventhem picture the number of figures is reduced so as
to concentrate the motive of the picture upon the saint and the
beggar. In the Windsor picture more figures are added, improving
the decorative qualities of the painting but losing somewhat in
dramatic effect.
In the Chatsworth sketch-book there are some carefully finished
studies from the crowded groups of horsemen and spectators in the
great woodcut from the design of Titian, representing ' Pharaoh
overwhelmed in the Red Sea.' In one of these groups there
occurs the figure of a young warrior on horseback, which corre
sponds so nearly to the figure of St. Martin, that it seems to be
almost certainly the original motive for Van Dyck's celebrated
picture. It would be difficult to believe, especially in view of Van
Dyck's powers of borrowing and assimilation, that the resemblance
is a mere coincidence. The figure of the beggar is also evidently
taken from an Italian model, and it occurs with but slight variations
in other paintings by Van Dyck. It it difficult to believe that the
Saventhem painting was not an early work by Van Dyck, done in
Italy, and, perhaps, forwarded to Ferdinand de Boisschot to celebrate
his elevation from Seigneur to Baron de Saventhem in 162 1, and
his entry into the commune. The evidence, which would assign
it to about 1629, is that of a nonagenarian member of the Van
Ophem family in 1739, a statement which it is difficult to disprove,
but which may be still be accepted with some reservation, in face
of the evidence given by the painting itself. The legend of Van
Dyck's intimacy with the family of Van Ophem seems to be
corroborated by a story that, in later years, when employed at
Saventhem, the painter did fall in love with Isabella van Ophem,
and offered to marry her, but was refused.
There are certain details in these three paintings which link
them together, such as the armoured warrior in ' The Betrayal,'
and again in the ' Crowning with Thorns,' the half-naked beggar
in the ' St. Martin,' who reappears as the man who offers a
bulrush to the Saviour in the ' Crowning with Thorns.' The
white horse on which St. Martin rides in Capt. Holford's sketch
is the same as that on which Charles V. is seated in the portrait
painted by Van Dyck in the Uffizii Gallery at Florence, and there
are sketches for such horses in the Chatsworth sketch-book.
Resuming the survey of Van Dyck's life in Italy, he is found,
after short visits to Genoa, Rome, Florence, and Bologna,
33 F

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
established at Venice, and absorbed in the study of Titian and
Paolo Veronese. It may seem remarkable that the young painter,
who was to receive such conspicuous honour from the magnates at
Rome and Genoa, should have left so few traces of his stay, and
received so little patronage from the wealthy and art-loving senators
and patricians in the city of the lagoons. Perhaps an important
historical event may account for this deficiency. In May, 1622,
the Republic of Venice was convulsed by the news of an internal
plot against its independence. Foscarini, one of the leading
senators, who had been ambassador to England, was accused of
treason with a view to the betrayal of the Republic, and, on what
afterwards were proved to be baseless charges, was executed as a
criminal. It so happened that Alethea, Countess of Arundel, who
has been mentioned before, a lady of imperious rank and dignity,
was residing at the time in Venice for the education of her sons.
Suspicion fell upon her for her intercourse with Foscarini, and she
was accused of arranging interviews at her house between Foscarini
and the Secretary to the Spanish Embassy. To such a pitch were
the popular passions excited, that the Countess of Arundel insisted
that Sir Henry Wotton, the English ambassador, should obtain
a public apology from the Venetian government, which was given
her with compensation for the insults and injuries which she had
received. Van Dyck, as has already been stated, was the devoted servant
and admirer of this haughty dame. During his stay at Venice,
he was probably devoted to her party, if not actually a resident in
her house. This would have been sufficient in itself to deprive
him of any patronage from the great Venetian families, and it is
not surprising to learn that his position there brought him into
financial straits. The Countess of Arundel, delayed a few months
by the illness of her younger son, quitted Venice for England, and
it is not improbable that Van Dyck followed in her train, travelling
by Mantua and Milan to Turin, where the countess certainly was
on January 4th, 1623. Tradition has recorded that Van Dyck
was strongly pressed by the Countess of Arundel to accompany
her to England, but that he refused to leave Italy. Although
so near to Genoa, he seems to have returned at once to Rome.
Perhaps his speedy return was accelerated by the interest in him
shown by some of the high dignitaries of the Church, who belonged
to the leading families of the country. 34^

CARDINAL BENTIVOGLIO
His chief patron was Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio, who had
been Papal Legate in Flanders up to 1617. The portrait of
Bentivoglio, which Van Dyck painted in 1623, now in the Pitti
Palace at Florence, is the first which raises Van Dyck from the
rank of mere first-rate painters to that in which artists stand apart,
unapproachable in their own particular line of art. Seated in his
high armchair, in his robes of scarlet and white rochet, his head
turned in an attitude of expectant attention, the Cardinal is the very
embodiment of the crafty Italian statesmen, that were nurtured in
the bosom of the Roman Church. It is not uninteresting to quote
the impression made by this portrait upon a young English painter,
Jonathan Richardson, the younger, early in the eighteenth century.
" Cardinal Bentivoglio," writes Richardson, " I never saw anything
like it. I look'd upon it two Hours, and came back twenty times
to look upon it again. He sits in an Elbow Chair with one of his
Elbows upon the Arm of the Chair and his Hand (the most
Beautiful and Graceful in the World) falls carelessly in his Lap by
the other, which most unaffectedly gathers up his Rochet, which
is painted Beautifully, but keeps down so as not to break the
Harmony. His Face has a Force beyond any thing I ever saw,
and a Wisdom, and Solidity as great as Raffaele's but vastly more
Gentile. Indeed it must be confess'd the Difference of the Subjects
contribute something to this Advantage on the side of Van Dyck.
The Colouring is true Flesh and Blood, Bright, and Transparent ;
Raffaele's is of a Brown Tinct and something Thick, at least
compared with this. His Scarlet is very Rich and Clear, but
serves nevertheless to set off the Face, 'tis so well manag'd. The
Picture is enrich'd with things lying upon the Table, which unite
with the Cardinal's Robes, and Flesh, and make together the most
pleasing Harmony imaginable." * Few visitors to the Pitti could
fail to endorse this apparently extravagant eulogy.
Cardinal Barberini (afterwards Pope Urban VIII.) is said to
have sat for his portrait to Van Dyck, and various members of the
Odescalchi, Colonna, and other princely families. Portrait-painting
was, however, not in such great demand at Rome as large paintings
of sacred subjects, or of mythology and classical history, in which
Van Dyck could only compete on equal grounds with other artists
in the Holy City. Allusion has already been made to the ' Stoning
1 Account of Statues, Bas-reliefs, and Drawings in Italy, France, etc., by Mr.
Richardson, sen. and jun. (London, 1722.) 35

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
of St. Stephen,' painted by him for the Spanish Church at Rome,
and to the portraits of Sir Robert Shirley and his wife. Careful
research would doubtless reveal the existence of other paintings by
Van Dyck at Rome belonging to the Roman period of his career;
but several paintings which bear his name at present at Rome,
Florence, Lucca, and elsewhere in Italy have to be regarded with
great suspicion. Van Dyck, especially after his stay at Genoa, found
many imitators. It is noteworthy that in 1750 the young Joshua
Reynolds, then a student at Rome, copied in the Palazzo Corsini
a painting by Van Dyck representing ' St. Martin dividing his
Cloak,' perhaps yet another version of the paintings described before.
At Rome he met and painted his fellow-countryman, the sculptor
Francois Duquesnoy, known as Fiammingo, a portrait which now
belongs to the King of the Belgians. One note of Van Dyck's
sojourn in Rome is found in his dedication of an engraving by
Lucas Vorsterman, made in later years from a painting of ' The
Dead Christ on the Knees of his Mother,' to George Gage, a
political agent sent by James I. to Rome to negotiate the marriage
between Charles, Prince of Wales, and the Infanta of Spain :
"mutuae consuetudinis olim in Urbe contracts " are the words in
which Van Dyck recalls their friendship. The intrigues, as stated
before, of his brother-artists drove Van Dyck from Rome ; and he
returned to Genoa, where he was among friends, and where he
settled, as it would appear, for a residence of some four years.
Van Dyck had now reached his full maturity as a painter.
Steeped in the manner and method of Rubens and Titian, he
evolved from these a style, at all events in his portraits, which was
and remains still entirely his own. The series of portraits painted
by Van Dyck at Genoa are among the finest in the world, and
would in themselves have been sufficient to give the painter a place
among the immortals. Genoa was not at the moment in a very
settled state, as it was more or less at war with the neighbouring
state of Savoy, and was besides continually being racked by the
contests between the great families of Doria and Spinola for supre
macy in the city. But these troubles did not reach so far as
Van Dyck, or enter into the sacred portals of Art. Dorias, Spinolas,
and the princes of Savoy, all contended for a share in the painter's
glory. Few actual details can be ascertained of the second sojourn of
Van Dyck in Genoa. He appeared to have lived with or near
36

CARDINAL BENTIVOGLIO
In the Palazzo Pitti, Florence
: ¦ r,L nip..

RESIDENCE AT GENOA
the brothers De Wael, in a house looking upon the sea. Among
the Flemish residents from Antwerp was a rich merchant, Lucas
van Uffel, an ardent and generous patron of the arts. Up to the
end of the last century the descendants of Van Uffel preserved a
number of letters that passed between Van Uffel and Cornelis de
Wael, in which Van Dyck was frequently mentioned. These
have unfortunately disappeared. Van Dyck has, however, im
mortalized Van Uffel in the admirable portrait of him which is in
the collection of the Duke of Sutherland at Stafford House, and
perhaps again in the fine portrait of a man with his hand on a stick
in the gallery at Brunswick. Van Dyck further inscribed to his
friend Van Uffel his etching of ' Titian and his Mistress,' as a
special tribute " in segno d'affectione et inclinatione amorevole."
Another important record of Van Dyck's life at Genoa has
also disappeared, though both this and the letters of Van Uffel
may possibly be recovered. Among the artists at Genoa was
Giambattista Paggi, a friend and correspondent of Rubens, with
whom Van Dyck was on particularly friendly terms. Letters
passed between the two painters until the death of Paggi in 1627,
when the letters passed into the possession of Stefano Magnasco,
another painter, after which all trace of them is lost.
Paggi was but one of a flourishing colony of artists at Genoa.
The Genoese School does not rank among the highest or the
most original ; but in Bernardo Strozzi, Paggi, il Grechetto, and
others it attained a sufficiently high rank to claim attention. The
Genoese painters had been deeply affected by the passing influence
of Rubens, and were to be still more so by Van Dyck, after whom
arose a series of imitators, such as Gian Bernardo Carbone and
others, whose deliberate imitations of Van Dyck have done much
to obscure the question of defining the exact range of Van Dyck's
own work at Genoa.
Among the Flemish artists settled at Genoa was one Jan
Roos of Antwerp, an animal-painter and a former pupil of
Snyders, who was filled with such admiration for the works of his
brilliant young compatriot that he abandoned his own independent
painting, in order that he might become a humble assistant to Van
Dyck. Another Antwerp painter, Michel of Antwerp, as he was
known, after serving in a similar capacity, went to Spain, where
he found employment, and thrived on his reminiscences of Van
Dyck. 37

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
Everything pointed to a splendid and honourable position for
Van Dyck at Genoa. He made good use of it. Retaining
throughout life his aspirations to succeed as a painter of history, to
be the rival of Titian and Rubens, he now gave fair play to his
own supreme and unrivalled genius, and produced that series of
portraits of the Genoese nobility, which not only rank among the
finest paintings in the world, but also form in themselves one of
the landmarks in the history of painting, certainly in that of
portraiture. To show how great was his industry, it is recorded
by the painter, Carlo Giuseppe Ratti, in his ' Istruzione di quanto
pu6 vedersi di piii bello in Genova,' published in 1780, that there
then existed in the palaces of the Genoese nobles and the churches
at Genoa no fewer than ninety-nine paintings by Van Dyck, of
which seventy-two were portraits. Of these paintings many remain,
though several have left their original homes, having been trans
ported for the most part to England in the early years of the
nineteenth century by the agency of Andrew Wilson, Buchanan,
and other pioneers of the modern trade of picture-dealing. It may
be noted that most of the paintings of Van Dyck in English col
lections, apart from those actually executed by him in England,
came from Italy, and but few from the Netherlands.

38

CHAPTER V
Portraits by Van Dyck at Genoa— Brignole-Sala, Spinola, Imperiale— Doubtful Portraits
— Other Paintings by Van Dyck at Genoa — Visit to Palermo — Sofonisba Anguissola
A STUDENT considering the paintings of Van Dyck at
Genoa can hardly help turning his mind in the first place to
the magnificent series of portraits alluded to. It is difficult
to find language in which to describe the effect produced by this
wonderful series of paintings. Van Dyck has shown himself in his
earlier portraits to be not only a complete master of construction
and modelling when painting a head, but also a keen and incisive
interpreter of character. On arriving in Italy he blended his vigorous
Flemish style with the suave dignity of the Italians. But now at
Genoa he at once entrances the world with a series of portraits
which are not only graceful and sympathetic in themselves, but are
thoroughly imbued with the character of their subjects, the circum
stances of their lives, and the atmosphere by which they were sur
rounded. As Mr. Claude Phillips has well said, " No Netherlander
ever approached as near to the true spirit of Italian Art, though
many have been more slavishly imitative of its outward appearances.
No Italian of Van Dyck's own day equalled him on this ground,
or presented the nobles of Genoa and Rome with such unaffected
dignity or an aristocratic charm so little self-assertive."1 Not even
Rubens, Rembrandt, or Velazquez could have so completely
surrendered their individuality to the interpretation of a social
atmosphere so different from that in which they had been nurtured.
From the Genoese portraits of Van Dyck date a whole class of
portraits in every country in Europe, and the effect of them is still
felt at the very close of the nineteenth century.
Taking the portraits as they come, the most familiar to those
who visit Genoa are those of the Brignole-Sala family, in their
palace, which is now public property and known as the Palazzo
Rosso. On a majestic white horse, the oil-sketch of which is in
the collection of Earl Brownlow at Ashridge, there rides the young
1 " Art Journal," March, 1900.
39

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
Marchese Anton Giulio Brignole-Sala, clad in plain black, with a
simple white collar, like the Spanish golilla. He is bareheaded,
with rich dark hair, slight moustache, with that wistful look of
melancholy in the eyes which is so characteristic of Van Dyck and
his works. In his hand the beautiful young cavalier holds his
black plumed hat, saluting the spectator with a noble dignity, such
as is the appanage of high birth and breeding alone.
Turning from him, the eye encounters the graceful figure of his
wife, Paola Adorno, pacing slowly through the colonnade of her
palace, clad in heavy blue robes, weighty with gold embroidery,
her little head almost overwhelmed by the great gold-edged ruff,
her hand falling easily by her side, as she turns to look at the
spectator before passing on her way. Nothing could be more simple
and unaffected, more aristocratic and more dignified. The same
fair Marchesa Brignole-Sala is depicted in a very similar portrait,
belonging to the Duke of Abercorn at Hampden House in London.
Here the lovely Paola stands in the same attitude, but the colonnade
has been replaced by a plain background with a curtain drawn
athwart it. The difference in the background serves to enhance
the value of her splendid robes, which are now white and gold,
while her left hand, no longer idle, draws back a fold of the silk,
and breaks the surface into one of coruscating sheen. In the
portrait at Genoa the lady is not only dignified but vivacious ; in
that of the Duke of Abercorn her dignity is statuesque. Contem
porary gossip, crystallized into tradition, suggests an undue influence
exercised by the chivalrous young painter on the heart of the fair
Marchesa. Happy lady, happy painter, even if the link between
them were not one of love, that they should both be rendered im
mortal by the same magic touch of Art !
In the same palace, depicted with the same dignity and
splendour, stands another lady, the Marchesa Geronima Brignole-
Sala, in dark robes, with her daughter, a girl in white and gold,
standing by her side. The lady only yields in beauty and interest
to the fair Paola Adorno. Close by stands a youth in rich brocaded
dress, a mere boy with a smooth face, the rich and tender lips of a
child, but animated with all the fire and dignity of a mediaeval
condottiere. Another lady of the same family has been traced in
the fine seated portrait of a lady with a child at Warwick Castle.
Yet another member of the Brignole-Sala family is said to be
depicted in the elegant and graceful man who leans against a
40

PAOLA ADORNO, MARCHESA DI BRIGNOLE-SALA
In the Palazzo Rosso, Genoa

PORTRAITS AT GENOA
pillar in the portrait belonging to Baron Franchetti at Venice, and
who closely resembles the vigorous gentleman with the upturned
moustaches in a fine portrait in the Liechtenstein Gallery at
Vienna, which bears the date of 1 624. The type of head, however,
in these two portraits with its crisp reddish hair is hardly Italian,
and certainly not one that would be expected to occur in the family
of Brignole-Sala. They suggest a family of a more northern
descent. In the Palazzo Reale there is a portrait of the Marchesa
Caterina Durazzo, which in pose, costume, and dignity approaches
near to those of the Brignole-Sala family. The proud lady rests
her graceful hand on the edge of a marble fountain, a motive to be
handed down by Van Dyck and his followers through hundreds of
repetitions. Caterina Durazzo was the wife of Gian Battista
Adorno, the brother of Paola, and is represented again in the Palazzo
Durazzo, seated with her two sons. In this place also is the
delightful portrait of a little boy in white dress, probably of the
Durazzo family, known as ' II Putto Bianco.'
The great Genoese hero of this date was Ambrogio Spinola,
the famous commander of the Spanish forces in the Netherlands.
Spinola, both as a man and as a general, seems to have thoroughly
deserved all the praise and glory which he earned from his con
temporaries, and to have been worthy of his high place in military
annals and in the history of Europe. He had been painted by
Rubens, and his many victories had been recorded on canvas by
Pieter Snayers and other military artists. He was to take a still
prouder place in art, as the hero of the great and triumphant painting
by Velazquez, representing ' The Capture of Breda,' in the Prado
Gallery at Madrid. The Spinola family was one of the greatest in
Genoa, second only and actual rivals to that of Doria, Van Dyck
was busy with their portraits. He painted the illustrious general
at full-length in armour, in the great portrait which passed from the
Spinola family to that of Centurione, in whose palace it now hangs.
A bust portrait of the great Spinola, admirably painted, is in the
collection of M. Rodolphe Kann at Paris. By his wife, Giovanna
Basadonna, Spinola had a son, Filippo, who was united in marriage
to Geronima, daughter of Paolo Doria, procurator of the Republic.
Van Dyck painted the young couple in their youthful beauty, but
their portraits have been dispersed. That of Geronima has passed
recently from the family of De Fornari, who inherited it, into the
41 g

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
collection of M. Adolphe Thiem at San Remo. That of Filippo
Spinola quitted Genoa early in the century, and may surely be
discovered in the splendid young warrior, depicted in the portrait
belonging to the Earl of Hopetoun, at Hopetoun House, near
Edinburgh. Ambrogio and Giovanna Spinola also had a beautiful daughter,
Polissena, who found a husband in the proud Don Diego Filippo
Guzman, Marchese di Leganez, ambassador from Philip IV. of
Spain to the Republic of Genoa. Van Dyck painted Polissena
Spinola more than once ; one of these portraits passed to Spain,
and is now in the Prado Gallery at Madrid, another, more beautiful
still, adorns the Galleria Doria in her native town. A portrait of
Polissena and her husband together has disappeared, but a fine
full-length portrait of the proud grandee, Leganez, is among the
fine works by Van Dyck in the collection of Earl Cowper at
Panshanger. Other portraits of the Spinola family are to be found at Genoa
and in English collections, the most remarkable among the former
being that of ' Marchesa Spinola and a little boy,' in the Palazzo
Cambiaso, and a young boy of the Spinola family in the Palazzo
di Pellicceria. Closely allied to the Spinolas was the family of Balbi,
and some of the most charming portraits by Van Dyck are of the
Balbi family. Some of the best of these have come to England,
including the fascinating ' Marchesa Balbi,' in her rich greenish
robes, in the collection of Captain Holford at Dorchester House,
which was imported from Genoa by Baron Heath, and the so-called
group of ' The Balbi Children,' in the collection of Earl Cowper
at Panshanger. The last group, which may represent three children
of the Spinola family, as it came from the Spinolas to the Balbi
family^ is one of the most charming presentations of aristocratic
child life, such as was never produced even by a Velazquez, a Sir
Joshua Reynolds, or a Romney. The children are standing in
easy attitudes outside the portico of their palace, and are surrounded
by their pet animals. At Genoa there remains in the Balbi palace
a fine equestrian portrait of ' Francesco Maria Balbi.' The story
goes that Van Dyck painted originally Gian Paolo Balbi on the
horse, but that as Gian Paolo was convicted of treason to his country,
the portrait was changed, and the head substituted of his relative,
Francesco Maria Balbi.
Another great family in Genoa was that of Lomellini, noteworthy
42

ANDREA SPINOLA
In the collection of Captain Heyiuood- Lonsdale at Shavington, Shropshire

PORTRAITS AT GENOA
among other things for the marriage of one Lomellini to the famous
painter Sofonisba Anguissola. One of the finest groups of Van
Dyck's Genoese period is that of the ' Lomellini Family ' in the
National Gallery at Edinburgh, one of the paintings brought to
England by Mr. Andrew Wilson, early in the nineteenth century.
A certain family likeness with a bushy-haired young warrior in this
group would lead one to believe that the graceful and elegant young
man painted by Van Dyck in the Wallace collection at Hertford
House may be a member of the Lomellini family. Van Dyck
painted the Doge Pallavicini and other members of that family, and
also members of the Raggi family. One of the gracious ladies
who sat to him for their portraits was Antonio Demarini, wife of
the Doge Francesco Lercari. Her portrait at whole length is in
the Palazzo Reale at Genoa, and another portrait of her has been
seen by Cavaliere Menotti in the palace of the Marchesa Paola
Imperiale Lercari at Modena. The family of Imperiale was as
important as its name would seem to denote. The principal
member of this family was Gian Vincenzo Imperiale, diplomat,
admiral, and patron of the arts. Van Dyck painted more than one
portrait of this eminent Genoese citizen and his family. One which
remains, that of Gian Vincenzo, is now in the collection of his
descendant, the Marchese Cesare Imperiale at his villa of Albero
d'Oro in Tenalba near Genoa. The great man is seated in his
chair, with a view of the sea and ships in the background. The
picture is dated 1625, and his age is stated to be forty-four. A
portrait has been recently purchased for the Royal Galleryat Brussels,
purporting to be a portrait of Ambrogio Doria, Doge of Genoa,
but really representing the same Gian Vincenzo Imperiale, as
shown by Cavaliere Menotti. This portrait is a fine and sumptuous
painting, but there is an artificial note in the whole composition,
and an unpleasant tone in the metallic note of the black brocaded
silk of his robe, which raises a doubt as to whether the portrait be
from the hand of Van Dyck or from one of his Genoese imitators.
There is on examination a lack of subtle character in the pose of the
head, which is surprising if it be the work of the painter who
depicted Cardinal Bentivoglio or Anton Giulio Brignole-Sala.
A criticism of a similar nature may be passed upon a superb
and gorgeous portrait, stated to be that of Andrea Spinola, and
now the property of Captain Heywood-Lonsdale at Shavington in
Shropshire. Andrea Spinola, who was Doge of Genoa in 1629,
43

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
sits in a chair immersed in a robe of the richest scarlet. No one,
it would be thought at first sight, could have painted such a
resplendent portrait but Van Dyck. And yet on examination the
portrait lacks the freedom and spontaneity, the ease and grace of
the Genoese portraits by Van Dyck. Compare it again with that
of Cardinal Bentivoglio, and see how even in the scarlet robe
the sensitive touch is absent, and how uninteresting the head is,
even though it be finely modelled. One is inclined reluctantly to
suggest that this portrait and that of Imperiale may be the work of
some skilful and competent imitator of Van Dyck. Three portraits
in the Palazzo Corsini at Rome, long attributed to Van Dyck,
have now been decided to be the work of another hand, Carbone,
according to Cavaliere Menotti, But if Carbone could paint these
and the portraits of Spinola and Imperiale, he should take a rank in
painting higher than his present position. The riddle is a difficult
one and still awaits solution. Bernardo Strozzi could paint fine
portraits, and may have been the painter of that striking presentment
of a warrior in the collection of Lord Ashburton which bears
erroneously the name of John, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg.
One has less scruple in assigning to another hand such portraits
as the so-called ' Muzio Vitelleschi, Chief of the Jesuits,' which
after various wanderings is now in the collection of Lord Battersea.
Although at first glance the name of Van Dyck would not
unnaturally rise to the lips, yet a further inspection shows that the
painting is entirely Italian, the work of a skilful artist, perhaps, as
has been suggested by Mr. Herbert Cook, one of the sisters
Anguissola, so celebrated in their day.
Van Dyck, in spite of his unparalleled success as a portrait-
painter, still maintained the object before him, that of becoming
one of the great decorative historical painters of the world. Where
Rubens had succeeded, he was determined to succeed as well. So
on his first arrival at Genoa, Van Dyck appears to have busied
himself with a number of mythological and classical subjects, such as
were suited to the gayer and more mundane character of art-patrons
in the south. Some of these are little more than repetitions of
Rubens, such as Van Dyck made at Antwerp before leaving Italy ;
but those done at Genoa have an Italian note in them. Take, for
instance, the ' Drunken Silenus ' in the Museum at Brussels, and
the early painting of the same subject by Van Dyck in the Royal
Gallery at Dresden. Both are mere transcripts from Rubens : but
44

MUZIO VlTELLESCHl
Aftributed to Van Dyck. In the collection of Lord Batter sea, London

»/•¦•? .

OTHER PAINTINGS AT GENOA
whereas the Dresden picture is Rubens and little else, in the
Brussels picture there is introduced a group of a satyr embracing
a nymph, which recalls at once some pictures of a kindred subject
in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna formerly attributed to Giorgione,
and also a similar picture at Hampton Court. In the Chatsworth
sketch-book Van Dyck has drawn one of these pictures, the so-
called ' Bravo,' so that it is probable that he was acquainted with
some or all of the others. This ' Drunken Silenus,' and also
' The Crucifixion of St. Peter,' also in the Royal Gallery at
Brussels, another Italianised Rubens, have been well described by
Eugene Fromentin as " du Jordaens ddicat et presque po&ique,
c'est-a-dire du Rubens conserve" dans sa noblesse et raffing par une
main plus curieuse."
Bacchanalian subjects were also tried by Van Dyck ; and, though
few paintings of this description can be identified with safety, there
are several drawings of such subjects as ' The Education of
Bacchus,' ' The Triumph of Cupid,' which show how much
engrossed Van Dyck was with this style of composition. One
interesting painting came to England and is now in the collection
of Lord Belper at Kingston. It represents a mimic 'Triumph of
Bacchus,' with many cupids and infant satyrs. The picture is
authenticated by an engraving made from it in 1628 by Briinn of
Strasburg, which was dedicated by Cornelis de Wael xenioli ergo
to his patron Francesco Grimaldi at Genoa. The picture appears
to have passed from the Balbi Palace to the collection of the Due
Dalberg in Paris, whence it was obtained early in the century by
Mr. Strutt, afterwards Lord Belper. Van Dyck was, however,
never really at his ease in the treatment of such subjects. Rubens,
as a true Fleming, revelled in them ; but through an over-vigorous
and truthful rendering made them for the most part coarse and
repulsive, at all events to the modern taste. Van Dyck shrinks,
almost like a woman, from the unblushing nakedness in which
Rubens delighted. His treatment of the nude is sensitive, tender,
voluptuous, but never coarse. The models chosen by him, male
and female, are nearer to the fauns and nymphs of a pagan art
than to the human realities of the north. His plastic sense is
remarkable, and with a little imagination he might be called the
Donatello of painting. In some paintings he would seem to have
taken his own figure as a model, and it is possible to trace his
graceful adolescence of face and body in such paintings as the
4,5

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
'Paris' in the Wallace Collection at Hertford House, and the
' Daedalus and Icarus ' in the collection of Earl Spencer at Althorp.
The latter subject was repeated by Van Dyck more than once.
During the three or four years in which Van Dyck was
working at Genoa, he was busily occupied as well with pictures of
a sacred nature for the service of the Church. In this class of
picture the influence of Titian was paramount, to the exclusion
even for a time of that of Rubens. The Chatsworth sketch-book is
full of notes from the Holy Families and other sacred subjects
by Titian. The type of head with which Titian invested the
Redeemer, that, for instance, of the 'Tribute Money' in the
Royal Gallery at Dresden, impressed Van Dyck by its grand
and simple melancholy. Over and over again Van Dyck dwells
on this wonderful presentment of Christ. He reproduces it, and
even adds a melancholy grace of his own in such paintings as ' The
Redeemer with the Cross/ in the Palazzo Rosso at Genoa ; the
' Christ and the Tribute Money,' in the Palazzo Bianco, also at
Genoa ; and the ' Christ healing the Paralytic,' in the Royal
Collection at Buckingham Palace, a later version of which is in
the Royal Gallery at Munich.
Titian, too, pervades the many beautiful renderings of ' The
Virgin and Child' or 'The Holy Family' which Van Dyck
painted, and which may be attributed to the period of his residence
in Italy., Correggio sometimes asserts himself, as in the tender
and delicate ' Virgin and Child with St. Catherine,' in the collec
tion of the Duke of Westminster at Grosvenor House, which may
be compared with the beautiful early painting by Correggio of a
similar subject at Hampton Court, and with the ' Madonna and
Child' by Correggio in the Estense Gallery at Modena. Unlike
Rubens, Van Dyck was as careful in his selection of a model for
the Virgin Mother as Titian or Raphael, and the model, once
selected, was further idealized by the painter. No Italian painter
ever depicted the Virgin more suave and beautiful than Van Dyck
did in such paintings as 'The Holy Family,' 'The Mystic Marriage
of St. Catherine,' in the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace ;
the touching 'Vision of St. Anthony of Padua,' in the Brera
Gallery at Milan; the ' Virgin and Child ' in the Schonborn Gallery
at Vienna ; the passionate and triumphant ' Virgin and Child," so
often repeated, in the collection of the Earl of Ellesmere at Bridge-
water House, in the Liechtenstein Gallery at Vienna, in the Palazzo
46

D/EDALUS AND ICARUS
In the collection of Earl Spencer, KG, at Althorp

s- v

THE VIRGIN AND CHILD
In the collection of the Earl of- Ellesmere at Bridgewater House, London

SACRED PICTURES
Bianco at Genoa ; and in the ' Virgin and Child with St. John the
Baptist, St. Mary Magdalene, and King David,' of which separate
versions exist in the Louvre and the Royal Gallery at Berlin. An
interesting point may be noted with regard to the last painting.
When in Rome, Van Dyck sketched among other works of Titian
the picture of ' The Education of Cupid ' in the Galleria Borghese.
At all times the exquisite flesh-painting of Titian seems to have
stirred Van Dyck's heart to its depths, and on this occasion he
has written in the Chatsworth sketch-book below the figure of the
nymph in Titian's picture, whose breast is exposed, " quel admirabil
petto." This beautiful bosom has been reproduced by Van Dyck
in the figure of St. Mary Magdalene, the passionate penitent of
the painting in question.
A model somewhat less attractive will be found in ' The Holy
Family with St. Elizabeth,' in the Royal Gallery at Turin, and
the often-repeated 'Virgin and Child to whom St. John the
Baptist offers a Scroll,' in the Royal Gallery at Munich. This
same model served for his great painting of ' The Repose in
Egypt, with a Dance of Angels.' The original painting of this
subject, one of the most charming of Van Dyck's composition, is
probably that in the Pitti Palace at Florence, or one of the
repetitions in the collection of Lord Ashburton, or formerly in the
collection of M. Boyer d'Aguilles at Aix. Here the Virgin sits
with the Child standing on her knees, under a bank, on which
grow Titianesque trees and shrubs ; St. Joseph sits behind her.
To solace and amuse the Child Jesus have come a company of boy-
angels, who dance in a circle and gaze in ecstasy upon the Child.
Another group of boy-angels makes music in the sky. The
group of dancing angels is a reminiscence of Rubens's so-called
' Friichte-Tanz ' in the Royal Gallery at Munich ; but the whole
composition is that of Van Dyck, under the influence of Titian.
Van Dyck afterwards repeated the same composition in the famous
picture at St. Petersburg.
In his larger sacred compositions Van Dyck adheres more to
the scheme of Rubens. At an early period of his residence in Italy
he painted afresh the subject of ' St. Sebastian bound to a Tree,'
a painting of which versions exist in the Royal Gallery at Munich
and the National Gallery of Edinburgh, the latter picture having
been imported from Genoa. Van Dyck shows himself a better
master of composition here than in his early painting of the same
47

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
subject. Now he is able to give space and atmosphere. The
saint, modelled from a beautiful Italian youth, dominates the
composition ; while the general decorative effect is enhanced by
an audacious droop of a scarlet banner, borne by a rider on the
right of the spectator, which falls athwart the composition, just as
a scarlet or crimson curtain does in some of his larger portraits.
Van Dyck returns to St. Sebastian again in a painting
representing 'St. Sebastian with Angels removing the Arrows
from his Wounds,' a pathetic subject often repeated by Van Dyck,
but which was originally adapted from Titian, since there is a
sketch of the subject in the Chatsworth sketch-book. Van Dyck
also began in Italy to paint those representations of ' Christ on
the Cross' which occur in many collections throughout Europe, and
for which he was specially qualified by temperament as well as by
artistic skill. These were no doubt suitable offerings to those
princes of the Church whose patronage Van Dyck enjoyed at
Rome and Genoa. Bellori mentions one painted for Cardinal
Bentivoglio, " un Crocifisso sopra una tela di quattro palmi con la
testa elevata e spirante."
Late in his stay at Genoa in 1625, Van Dyck painted a
' Crucifixion, with St. Francis, St. Bernard, and the Donor,
Francesco Orero,' for the church of S. Michele di Pagana, not far
from Genoa. There are various legends concerning this picture,
which have been collected on the spot by Cavaliere Menotti. One
was that Van Dyck fought a duel with a fatal result to his adversary,
and, to escape from the consequences, took refuge with his friends,
the Orero family, in their villa at Pagana. This family, having
great influence at Genoa, gave the painter shelter until the matter
was cleared up and he was able to return. To show his gratitude
Van Dyck painted for them this picture of ' The Crucifixion.'
Another story was that Van Dyck was shipwrecked on the coast
near Rapallo in 1625 after his return from Sicily, and painted this
picture for the Orero family to celebrate his escape. As a matter
of fact the picture was bequeathed to the church of S. Michele by
Francesco Orero in 1630.
One painting, which can hardly be attributed to any period
but that of his residence in Italy, is the great ' Holy Trinity' in the
Esterhazy Collection in the Academy at Buda Pest. The treat
ment is peculiar. Jesus Christ and the Almighty are seated on
the clouds, the former on the right, the latter on the left of the
48

THE HOLY TRINITY
i
In the Esterhazy Collection, Royal Academy, Buda-Pest

VISIT TO PALERMO
globe, which is surmounted by the Cross, above which floats the
Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. The whole group is borne up
by boy-angels above a rich landscape of a Giorgionesque character.
Rubens has treated a similar subject, but not with such beauty or
majesty. The feeling is thoroughly Italian, akin to that of Moretto
of Brescia. The boy-angels are those of Titian, interpreted by
Van Dyck. This painting must rank with 'The Repose in
Egypt ' among the most important works of the Flemish School.
It would seem that Van Dyck sent out from Genoa many
paintings of this character. Philip IV. of Spain had not a few in
the Escorial, which may have been despatched direct from Genoa.
It is even said that Van Dyck had already forwarded paintings
from Genoa to Antwerp before he decided to return to his native
country. This residence at Genoa was broken in 1624 by a journey to
Palermo. Philibert Emmanuel of Savoy was then Viceroy of
Sicily, grandson of Philip II. of Spain, and nephew to Isabella
Clara Eugenia, the Regent of the Netherlands. Van Dyck was
sent for to Palermo to paint a portrait of the Viceroy. This
journey is corroborated in a peculiarly interesting way by the
Chatsworth sketch-book. Apart from a slight study of a witch
at the stake {una strega in Palermo), the sketch-book contains
a sketch from life of the famous woman-painter, Sofonisba
Anguissola. Sofonisba was no less than ninety-six years of age in 1624, and
she thus formed a link with the best days of Italian painting.
Herself a painter of very great merit, she had late in life married
one of the Lomellini family at Genoa, and had removed to Palermo,
where Van Dyck met her. He sketched her portrait from the life
on July 12, 1624, and notes how, even at her advanced age, when
quite blind, she took a keen interest in painting, her memory still
being good and clear. He adds that she gave him some good
advice and told him some interesting details of her life, and that
she only regretted that blindness prevented her from painting, since
her hand was still strong and firm. A painting of Sofonisba,
corresponding to the drawing, has lately been discovered in a
mutilated condition at Palermo, and attributed with some probability
to Van Dyck.
Van Dyck completed some portraits and other paintings at
Palermo. In the church of S. Caterina there, there is a 'Virgin
49 H

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
and Child' by Van Dyck. The rather hard-featured Sicilian
models, both of the mother and child, can be traced again in a
' Holy Family' belonging to M. Rodolphe Kann at Paris, in a
' Holy Family' in the Palazzo Doria at Genoa, and in a picture
representing ' Charity ' in the Royal Gallery at Turin. The
patron-saint of Palermo, S. Rosalia, was painted by Van Dyck
for the church of the Ospedale dei Sacerdoti there. Another
painting of ' S. Rosalia,' perhaps painted at Palermo, was formerly
in the Vicar's Chapter-rooms in the Escorial. He was also
engaged on a large painting for the Oratorio della Compagnia del
Rosario, representing ' The Virgin and Child with S. Domenico,
S. Rosalia, and other Saints,' when an outbreak of the plague
drove the painter back to Genoa : there he completed the picture
and despatched it later on to Palermo, where it still remains.

5o

SOFONISBA ANGUISSOLA AND AUTOGRAPH NOTE BY
VAN DYCK
From the original in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, K.G, at Chatsworth

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CHAPTER VI
Other Portraits by Van Dyck at Genoa — Langlois, Lanier, the De Waels — Return to
Antwerp — Death of his Sister Cornelia — Van Dyck makes his Will
THE city of Genoa was one of the busiest in Europe. As one
of the chief ports on the Mediterranean, it shared with Venice
and Antwerp a position not unlike that of Liverpool and
Hamburg in the nineteenth century. From north and from south
traders with their wares and merchandise crossed the quays at
Genoa. Living as he did near the shore, among the foreign colony,
Van Dyck met and made friends with many of the foreigners who
resided in or passed through Genoa. One Lumagne, a banker
from Lyons, who was established at Genoa, was painted by Van
Dyck in one of the fine portraits which found their way to the
Hermitage Collection at St. Petersburg. The dark Venetian
colouring, which characterizes the remarkable portrait of a 'Man
with an Arch- Lute, or Theorbo,' in the Prado Gallery at Madrid,
and the portrait of ' Leclerc ' in the collection of Earl Brownlow
at Ashridge, would seem to indicate that they were painted in Italy
and perhaps during Van Dyck's residence at Genoa. A further
acquaintance with Van Dyck's friends at Genoa would probably
lead to the identification of the fine portrait of a man known as 'A
Senator of Antwerp,' in the collection of the Duke of Portland at
Welbeck Abbey.
Some interesting individuals crossed the path of Van Dyck at
Genoa. One of these was the engraver and printseller from Paris,
Francois Langlois of Chartres, who may be presumed to have
arrived at Genoa with the purpose of promoting his trade as a
printseller. The portrait of Langlois is one of the most curious
and interesting among the works of Van Dyck. It represents a
jovial man of some forty years old in the dress of a Savoyard
peasant. In spite of his large and coarse features and untrimmed
beard Langlois has a very attractive appearance. He wears a
broad-brimmed hat and plays a kind of bagpipe, his whole costume
seeming to indicate that he had trudged on foot through France
51

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
and Savoy with his wares in a pack on his back, and had arrived
at Genoa at the close of his travels. The rich colouring of this
painting, especially in the background, shows that it must have been
painted in Italy. The lively expression of the face and hands, the
rich brown flesh-tones and other effects of light upon the dress, are
all characteristic of Van Dyck at his best. Langlois was, moreover,
one of the agents employed by the Earl of Arundel.
Another curious individual whom Van Dyck encountered at
Genoa was Nicholas Lanier. Lanier belonged to a large family
of French origin, who were attached as musicians to the royal
family of England. Nicholas Lanier was a painter as well as a
flute-player, and a portrait of himself by his own hand is among the
interesting portraits of musicians which hang in the Examination
Schools at Oxford. He earned the good graces of Charles, when
Prince of Wales, and on the accession of Charles to the throne of
England, Lanier was consulted and employed by the king on many
questions relating to his majesty's collection of pictures. He was
especially selected by Charles to travel in Italy with a view to
obtain pictures for the royal collection, and he was the chief
instrument employed in the purchase of the Duke of Mantua's
collection, Charles I.'s most important acquisition. While on this
mission he must have met Van Dyck at Genoa, who painted a
portrait of him there. This portrait was afterwards in the collection
of Charles I., for in the catalogue of the king's collection occurs :
"34. Item ye Picture of Nicholas Laneer, master of his Majtys
Musick half a figure in a carved all over gilded frame " ; to which
is appended a further statement : " Done by Sir Anthony Vandike
beyond the seas." That this statement means that the portrait
was done in Italy is clear from the Treasurer's accounts, which
contain an entry : " The accomptaunte is allowed for money paid
to Nich*3 Laneer his Ma's servaunte for provicon of pictures in the
partes beyond the seas for his Ma's service by Privy Seal and
acquittaunce xviijm. v\\cli. viji-." Lanier himself told Sir Peter
Lely that he sat seven entire days to Van Dyck for this portrait,
morning and afternoon. The portrait was sold at the dispersal of
the royal collection to Lanier himself. It seems to have passed
during the eighteenth century into the collection of Lord Chancellor
Henley, afterwards Earl of Northington, but it cannot now be
traced. It seems probable that it passed into the collection of
Sir Andrew Fountaine at Narford, and at the dispersal of the
52

FRANCOIS LANGLOIS, dit CIARTRES
In the collection of William Garnett, Esq., at Quernmore Park, Lancaster

OTHER PORTRAITS AT GENOA
Fountaine sale was sold as an anonymous portrait, which a little
later found its way to America.
Bellori also records the tradition that Van Dyck also painted
Lanier as ' David playing the Harp before Saul,' but this picture
also cannot be traced. This portrait seems to have been painted
at a later date, when Van Dyck and Lanier met again in England.
Among the painters employed at the moment in Genoa was
Orazio Gentileschi, an academical painter highly esteemed in his
day, but better known perhaps as the father of the fair Artemisia,
who handled the brush as well as, if not better than, her father.
Gentileschi had been employed at Turin, and was at Genoa when
Van Dyck was there. A fine drawing of Gentileschi by Van Dyck
is in the Print Room at the British Museum; but this, according to
the inscription, was done at a later date, for Gentileschi was called to
the court of Charles I. and employed on similar errands to Lanier.
Van Dyck met him again in England, drew him as "Horatius
Gientileschi pictor celeberrimus apud Mag: Britt: R.," and had the
portrait engraved for the ' Iconographie.'
Van Dyck painted his two friends, Lucas and Cornelis de Wael,
in a double portrait, the two brothers being agreeably posed in a
natural and easy position, one sitting, the other standing. The
younger brother, Cornelis, remained to the end of his life in Genoa.
He was a versatile painter, though hardly a great one, and battle-
pieces, sea-fights, peasant-scenes, sacred subjects, historical pageants,
all on a small scale, came readily from his brush. In the rich
collection of Netherlandish pictures belonging to M. Sdmdnow at
St. Petersburg there is a view of the interior of a hospital at Genoa,
with portraits of many of the nobility as visitors ; on the walls of
the hospital hang sacred pictures by Van Dyck. Lucas de Wael
returned to Antwerp, where he died in 1661. Probably he took
Van Dyck's portrait of himself and his brother home with him,
unless it be the case that the fine study in grisaille for the portrait,
now in the Cassel Gallery, was all that Van Dyck did in Italy, and
that Van Dyck after his return to Antwerp completed a painting
from the grisaille study. Van Dyck seems to have painted as a
companion picture a similar double portrait of Pieter de Jode and
his son of the same name, the well-known engravers, the uncle and
cousin of the De Waels. Both these paintings appear in an inventory
taken after the death of the Chevalier Jean Baptiste Antoine,
postmaster at Antwerp, who died in 1697. Since that date they
53

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
found their way to Italy, and are now in the gallery of the Capitol
at Rome. The portrait of Lucas and Cornelis de Wael, hie
ruralium ille omnigenum prcecipueque conflictuum Representator,
was engraved by Wenzel Hollar at Antwerp in 1646. Georg
Petel, the sculptor of Augsburg, was another of the foreign artists
in Genoa painted by Van Dyck ; his portrait is now in the Royal
Gallery at Munich.
Some doubt still remains as to the exact date at which Van
Dyck quitted Genoa and returned to his native city of Antwerp,
and also as to the reason which led him to do so. It has been
asserted with confidence that he was back in Antwerp in 1625.
The only evidences apparently for this statement are very fragment
ary and untrustworthy. Vertue, the engraver, in his notebooks says
that " amongst the Drawings collected and sold by Mr Jonathan
Richardson senior was one sketch by Vandyck and a part of a
letter subscribed by himself Anf Van Dyck, 16 d'otto6 1625,
Anversa." This drawing and letter cannot at present be identified.
Further, on a proof-impression of the portrait of Nicolas Rockox,
burgomaster of Antwerp for the last time in 1625, engraved by
Lucas Vorsterman after Van Dyck, is written Anton Van Dyck
pinxit 1625. On the other hand, the great portrait of Gian
Vincenzo Imperiale at Genoa is dated 1625. There are more
conclusive proofs, however, that Van Dyck did not return to
Antwerp at any time in 1625, and the evidence from these may be
sufficient to explain his decision to return home. Raffaello Soprani,
the historian of the Genoese Artists, who was a boy when Van
Dyck was at Genoa, and might have seen him there, says that
Van Dyck was driven away from Genoa by the jealousy of the
other painters there. The painter, Carlo Giuseppe Ratti, who
edited and enlarged Soprani's book in 1768, speaking of Van
Dyck's visit to Palermo, says : "Ma che non puote l'invidia ?
II Vandik, che avea in se un merito da stare a fronte co' piu
valenti Maestri era da parecchi spregiato. Alcuni diceano non aver
egli, fuor d'un apparente colorito, prerogative, che il distingues-
sero nella Pittura : ed alcuni altri il tacciavano, quai difettoso ne
disegni, e svenevole nelle composizioni. Onde un Pittore si degno,
e che era della citta nostra cotanto amato e stimato, non potendo
sofferire la malignita di quelle invidiose lingue, prese per espediente
l'andare a procacciarsi fuori diqua fortuna migliore." Again, after
the painter's return to Genoa, Ratti adds, " Ma quanto piu il
54

ON THE RIGHT
LUCAS AND CORNELIS DE WAEL
In the Capitol Gallery, Rome
ON THE LEFT
PIETER DE JODE THE ELDER AND YOUNGER
In the Capitol Gallery, Rome

RETURN TO ANTWERP
Vandik cercava do farsi strada alia gloria, altrettanto gli veniva intra-
chiusa dagl' invidiosi per modo che v'ebbe sino che osb avanzarsi ad
emendare i suoi disegni. Per la quai cosa giustamente sdegnato
abbandonb di nuovo questa citta, e se ne passb alia patria." In
spite of these assertions by an authority so near to the time of Van
Dyck as Soprani, it is possible to look upon these stories as nothing
more than a re-echo of the reasons which compelled Van Dyck
to quit Rome. Bellori, moreover, who wrote in 1672, does not
allude to any such reason for Van Dyck's departure from Genoa.
There were private reasons sufficient to account for his return to
Antwerp. Frans Van Dyck, the painter's father, died at Antwerp on
December 1, 1622, a little more than a year after his son had left
home for Italy. The family was wealthy, and there must have
been a considerable property to divide in shares among his sons
and daughters. This division may have been postponed during
the absence of the second brother in Italy, but in 1624 some steps
were taken in Antwerp to settle the matter. Van Dyck's eldest
sister was married to Adriaen Diercx, a notary at Antwerp, who
wrote to the magistrate on September 27, 1624, to the effect that
" Anthoni Van Dyck " was of full age, but abroad, and had said
that anybody might settle his affairs for him. Matters, however,
still remained unsettled, for on December 12, 1625, his brothers
and sisters had to certify that their brother was still abroad.
It may be conjectured that the family put some pressure upon
the painter to return to Antwerp and settle the family affairs,
which must have caused them considerable inconvenience while
unsettled. Van Dyck, on the other hand, was unwilling to leave
his comfortable home and lucrative practice at Genoa for the
uncertain prospect of employment at Antwerp under the shadow
of Rubens. There is no actual record of him during 1626, so
that it was during this year that he probably started on his home
ward journey. Passing by Turin, he seems to have traversed the
Mont Cenis pass, for at the little town of St. Jean de Maurienne,
on the northern side of the pass in Savoy, he seems to have been
taken ill and hospitably entertained by a family of the name of
Borelly. In return for their kindness he painted a portrait of
their little daughter, which is still preserved there. From thence
he passed by Aix, where he spent some little time in the society
of the great scholar Nicolas Peiresc, one of the leading citizens
55

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
there. Peiresc was a great friend of Rubens, and was naturally
interested in his friend's brilliant young pupil. Van Dyck drew
his portrait and had it engraved for the ' Iconographie.' In some
letters which have been preserved from Peiresc to a young painter
of Antwerp, Adriaen de Vries, Peiresc speaks highly of Van Dyck
and his general accomplishments.
After this all trace is lost of Van Dyck for some time. It has
been said that he visited Paris, but this statement is based upon
the portrait of Francois Langlois, which, as has been said before,
was assuredly painted in Italy. He probably went straight to
Antwerp to settle his affairs, and the tradition of the neglect and
want of employment which welcomed him on his return to his
native city may, if true, be attributed to this time.
There seems to be good reason for crediting the tradition that
Van Dyck at this time paid a second visit to England, though no
conclusive evidence can be produced to prove such an event.
Among the foreign artists resident in London was an Antwerp
painter, George (or J oris) Geldorp, a friend and contemporary of
Van Dyck. Tradition narrates that Van Dyck came to England
and stayed with Geldorp at his house in Drury Lane, but returned
to Antwerp, as he met with no encouragement, the court favour
being monopolised by Daniel Mytens. This visit to England
seems to be further accounted for and corroborated by the following
extract from the notebooks of Vertue, the engraver :
" Mr Remy has many times said that the Duke of Buckingham
that was Embassador to France in King Charles the first Time
being recall'd from France came by the way of Flanders, where he
meet with Vandyke the Painter & had his Picture drawn by him,
which he brought over & showd the King which the King liked
very well and order'd Vandyke to be sent for over to come and
draw the Queen's Picture, which the King shew'd to Mytens who
was then Painter to the King. He told the King it was very
well and he was certainly a great master that had done it, upon
which he beg leave of the King to let him retire into his country
since now he had got a better painter to serve him. The King
said, can't I imploy two ingenious men, but he insisted upon going
adding that he had been abroad many years and wisht to retire
that he might finish his days in his own Country & so retired to
Utrecht the place of his nativity. Vandyke acquainted the King
that he came over express to his Majesty but desir'd leave he might
56

SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND
go back & settle his affairs & then he whould come over again
and reside hear and so hee did."
The " Mr Remy" referred to was Van Dyck's pupil, Remigius
van Leemput, and the story was told to Vertue by one Peeters,
a painter, who had it from Van Leemput himself. Vertue further
adds that he saw the portrait of Buckingham by Van Dyck " in
the hands of Mr Bruce."
Allowing for a certain looseness as to facts, due to oral trans
mission, there is nothing improbable in this statement. It is difficult,
however, to identify the particular visit of the Duke of Buckingham
to the Netherlands, for Vertue's statement can hardly refer to a
visit paid by Buckingham to The Hague in November, 1625, in
order to conclude a treaty between the states-general and the King
of Denmark. Moreover, the portrait of Buckingham by Van
Dyck has not been traced, unless it be the fine head in the Pitti
Palace at Florence, which is there attributed to Rubens. Buck
ingham was assassinated in August, 1628, so that the story cannot
refer to the later visit of Van Dyck to England. Mytens was court-
painter to Charles I.; but, even if Van Leemput's tale be true, he
was not permitted to leave the king's service as stated. A full-
length portrait of the king by Mytens, now in the National Portrait
Gallery, is dated 163 1. Moreover, Mytens seems to have remained
in London for some time after Van Dyck's final arrival, and was
painted both alone and with his family by Van Dyck, with whom
he seems to have been on friendly terms. It is difficult to assign
any portraits by Van Dyck to the time of this supposed visit.
The next trace of Van Dyck's career is a fine portrait of a man
in the Royal Picture Gallery at The Hague, which bears the date
1627, and also a shield of armorial bearings, which have been
identified, though without positive certainty, as those of the Sheffield
family. This has led to the identification of the portrait with one
Sir  Sheffield, governor of the town of Brielle at the mouth
of the Maas. This portrait, both in pose and conception, and
especially in the painting of the richly embroidered glove, resembles
a fine portrait now in the collection of Mr. George Salting in
London, which, after bearing various names, is now called for some
reason ' Prince d'Angri.' This title may perhaps be identical
with that of Prince Tingry, one of the titles borne by the eldest
son of the Due de Luxembourg. The portrait, which is a very
powerful painting, presents the features of a Flemish gentleman
57 1

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
rather than those of a French nobleman, as does the so-called
'Sheffield.' Mr. Salting's picture is decidedly in Van Dyck^s
Genoese manner, but may well have been painted after Van Dyck's
return to Antwerp.
In the gallery of The Hague there hangs a brilliant portrait of
a lady, known from engravings as that of one 'Anna Wake.'
This portrait bears the date 1628, and the so-called identification of
the portrait of ' Sir  Sheffield ' has led to a further identification
of the lady's portrait as that of his wife. There was, however,
an important family of English merchants named Wake residing
at Antwerp, and the portrait of ' Anna Wake ' belongs to a series
of female portraits which Van Dyck was about to commence at
Antwerp. Van Dyck's sister Cornelia died in September, 1627, and
was buried in the churchyard of the Be'guines at Antwerp on the
1 8th of that month. It may be supposed that her brother was
present at her death-bed. On March 3, 1628, Van Dyck made
a will before a notary at Antwerp. He describes himself as
" painter, bachelor, and in good health." He directs that his body
should be buried in the churchyard of the Be'guines near his sister.
He makes his other two sisters, the be'guines, Susanna and Isabella,
his sole heirs, and after their death his property was to be divided,
three-fourths going to the poor of Antwerp and one-fourth to the
convent of St. Michael. He makes a few legacies to charities,
and provides for the support and welfare of Tanneken van Nijen,
an old servant of himself and his dead father. At the same time
his sisters Susanna and Isabella made a will, leaving their fortune
after their death to their brother.
It is pleasing to think of the affection shown by Van Dyck to
his sisters, and returned by them. His provision for their old
servant is also a touching incident in his career. No mention is
made of his brothers or of his sister Catharina, wife of the notary,
Diericx. Frans Van Dyck, the eldest brother, and Catharina
make no show in the lives of Antoon or the other sisters. The
youngest brother, Theodorus, as a priest, could hold no property,
and the sister, Anna, as a Facontine nun, could not do so either,
so that their omission can be accounted for.
Van Dyck was of a religious temperament. His febrile
energy, impressionable nature, inexhaustible passion for work,
together with a sort of feminine mixture of obstinacy and indecision
58

THE VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA
In the Brera Gallery, Milan

VAN DYCK AND RUBENS
in his character, lead one to think that, had he not been a painter,
he might have been a priest. He was clearly under the influence
of the Jesuits from his youth. Now at the death-bed of his sister,
and with his thoughts turned towards his own decease, he, in 1628,
took the step of affiliating himself to the Company or Confraternity
of Celibates, which had been formed under the rule of the Society
of Jesus at Antwerp.
The moment was now more favourable for Van Dyck to estab
lish himself in his native town. Rubens lost his wife, Isabella Brant,
in 1626, and felt her death keenly. To distract himself he took to
travelling, and became involved through Balthasar Gerbier in the
political intrigues in which the Duke of Buckingham was trying to
entangle Europe. The new diplomatic duties of Rubens took him
away from Antwerp. As agent of the Regent Isabella he was sent
in August, 1628, to Paris, and thence to Madrid. In the following
year he was sent as agent for Philip IV. of Spain back to the
Netherlands, and thence to London, where he arrived in June, 1629 ;
and it was not until July or August, 1630, that the great painter
returned to his home at Antwerp.
It is a significant fact that the rise of Van Dyck to the first rank
among the painters at Antwerp synchronizes with the departure of
Rubens on this mission. There is, however, no cause for any
suspicion that the friendly relations between Rubens and Van Dyck
were at any time impaired. Two suns cannot shine in the same
sky. On May 18, 1628, the brilliant James Hay, Earl of Carlisle,
who had risen with Buckingham, through his good looks, in the
favour of James I., visited Van Dyck in his house at Antwerp and
met Rubens there.
Van Dyck had now surmounted the most difficult ascent in his
career. He had attained in painting a position of rivalry, if not
actually of equality, to his great master, and his future success was
assured. 'Signor Antonio,' as he called himself after his return
from Italy, was a person of considerable importance in his own
opinion, and he fully intended to occupy no inferior place in the
estimation of others, be they princes, burghers, or his brother
artists.

59

CHAPTER VII
Van Dyck's Sacred Paintings — Memorial to his Father — Paintings at Ghent, Termonde,
Mechlin, and Courtray — The ' Nood Gods ' — Samson and Dalila — Secular Paintings
AT the exhibition of paintings by Van Dyck, held at Antwerp
in the summer of 1899, to celebrate the 300th anniversary
of Van Dyck's birth, one of the principal features was the
bringing together of the principal works of importance which
he painted for the churches of Antwerp and the neighbourhood,
some of which still remain in their original position. For the first
time it was possible to form some estimate of Van Dyck as a
history-painter, that branch of art in which he sought to excel and
to rival the great creations of Rubens. The great paintings which
were contributed, with the special sanction of the Cardinal
Archbishop of Mechlin, by the churches of Ghent, Mechlin,
Termonde, and elsewhere could not fail to be interesting ; but they
hardly succeeded in making the impression due to their merits,
owing to the unfortunate state into which they had for the most
part been allowed to fall through neglect, or by the more cruel
injuries of unskilful or injudicious restoration.
On his return from Italy, Van Dyck, on receiving commissions
for these large paintings for the use of the Church, discarded the
Italian method of massed light and shade, opaque colours, and
glowing tones, in which he had followed their example. These
would have been unsuited to the large cold churches of the north,
in which paintings depended for their chief effect on being seen
from a distance, and to the climate of the country on the banks of
the Scheldt. Fromentin says of Rubens, " Notez encore qu'il
peint pour des murailles, pour des autels vus des nefs, qu'il parle
pour un vaste auditoire, qu'il doit par consequent se faire entendre
de loin, frapper de loin, saisir et charmer de loin, d'ou requite
l'obligation d'insister, de grossir ses moyens, d'amplifier sa voix.
II y a des lois de perspective et pour ainsi dire d'acoustique qui
president a cet art solennel et de grande parted." It was under
these laws that Van Dyck was now to come, and to attempt to
walk in the steps of his great master. Van Dyck therefore reverted
60

THE ECSTASY OF ST. AUGUSTINE
if i
In the Church of St. Augustine, Antwerp

SACRED PAINTINGS
to the manner of Rubens, and endeavoured to impart into his works
that all-pervading effect of light and colour which is so characteristic
of the elder painter's art. To achieve this Van Dyck used a drier
kind of paint, almost a kind of tempera, and employed a high tone
of blue, yellow and gray, to give light and brilliancy to his paintings.
Unfortunately it has been just these colours which have suffered
the most from damp or neglect, and from unskilful restoration, so
that the surface with its glazings once damaged, their translucency
destroyed, has in many cases been ruined irretrievably. For this
reason the aspect of Van Dyck's great church-paintings, when
collected together, was disappointing.
The first important commission which Van Dyck received after
his return to Antwerp was from the church of St. Augustine in
that city, for which he executed a great painting of ' St. Augustine
in Ecstasy at a Vision of the Holy Trinity.' This work, for which
the painter received 600 gulden, was completed in June, 1628.
It cannot fail to impress and attract attention. The saint, clad in
a dark robe with a rich gold-embroidered cape, stands and gazes
in ecstasy at the vision above. Two beautiful angel-youths support
him, one of whom points to the vision aloft. On either side kneel
S. Monica and a monk, probably the donor of the picture, all gazing
upwards to the sky. There the Redeemer sits on the clouds hold
ing the sacred Symbol of the Trinity in his hand, while the Holy
Dove floats above. I n the clouds around a company of child-angels
disport themselves, holding various emblems. The whole picture
in structure and composition is reminiscent of the Italian School.
The division into two sections recalls Raphael's ' Transfiguration '
and ' St. Cecilia,' and also the famous ' Assumption ' of Titian.
The figures themselves suggest the influence of Guido Reni and
the Bolognese School. But the whole picture belongs to Van
Dyck. Compare it, for instance, with Raphael's ' St. Cecilia,' so
staid and composed in her rapture. How vigorous is the action of
St. Augustine, who appears as if he must sink backwards in his
ecstasy but for miraculous support. Compare also the stiff row of
quiring angels in the ' St. Cecilia ' with the radiant glory of child-
angels in the ' St. Augustine,' Titianesque in their idea, and like
Correggio in their disposition.
While engaged on this picture Van Dyck painted, as a gift on
his part to the church, one of his numerous small pictures of ' Christ
on the Cross.' This is one of the most beautiful of Van Dyck's
61

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
renderings of this subject, and is now in the Museum at Antwerp.
In 1629 Van Dyck fulfilled a pious duty. His father, Frans Van
Dyck, had during his last illness been attended by the Dominican
nuns at Antwerp. On his death-bed, seven years before, he
promised them in return for their care a painting by his son. It is
not easy to conjecture what the relations may have been between
Frans Van Dyck and his son. The latter left his father's house
at a very early age. The only fact that can be ascertained about
the father's later career is a not very creditable incident. There
are no traces in Van Dyck's life of the same affection for his father
as he showed for his sisters and younger brother, and it was probably
his sisters who urged him, on his return, to carry out his father's
dying promise to the Dominican sisters, and let his father's soul
rest in peace. Van Dyck at all events painted for the church of
the Dominican nuns a large composition, ' Christ on the Cross
between St. Dominic and St. Catherine of Siena,' a boy-angel
being seated on a stone at the foot of the cross holding a down-
turned torch as an emblem of death. The object of the painting
is distinctly stated in large letters on the stone:
NE PATRIS SVI MANIBVS
TERRA GRAVIS ESSET HOC
SAXVM CRVCI ADVOLVEBAT
ET HVIC LOCO DONABAT
ANTONIVS VAN DYCK.
The good Sisters were enchanted with the painting, although it is
one of Van Dyck's least interesting and most uninspired works.
So many persons came to see it that in 1651 the Sisters employed
Scheltius Bolswert to engrave it, and the son of Nicolas Lauwers
to make a copy of Bolswert's print as well. The picture is now in
the Museum at Antwerp. In this same year Van Dyck painted
for his Confraternity of Celibates in the house of Jesuits an important
composition representing ' S. Rosalia crowned with a Wreath by
the Infant Christ.' In this pleasing picture the Child leans forward
from his Mother's knee, while on either side of them stand St. Peter
and St. Paul ; before them kneels the saint with long golden hair
and rich robe. In 1630 Van Dyck painted a companion picture
representing 'The Mystic Marriage of the Blessed Herman Joseph,'
and recalling in sentiment his exquisite earlier work, ' The Virgin
and Child with St. Anthony of Padua.' These two fine paintings,
62

THE CRUCIFIXION
In the Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp

SACRED PAINTINGS
for which Van Dyck received 300 gulden and 150 gulden
respectively, hung in the hall of the Jesuits until the suppression of
the Order in 1776, when they were purchased for 3,500 florins
and 8,000 florins apiece by the Empress Maria Theresa and
removed to Vienna, where they now form part of the wonderful
collection of works by Van Dyck in the Imperial Gallery.
During the three or four years from 1628 to 1632 Van
Dyck painted some other important pictures representing 'The
Crucifixion.' In 1630 he painted for the Confraternity of the
Holy Cross in the church of St. Michel at Ghent a large ' Cruci
fixion,' known from the action of a man in the foreground as ' Le
Christ a l'Eponge.' This is one of the most individually character
istic of Van Dyck's paintings, and he repeats in it some motives
from his earlier pictures, the two boy-angels in the sky, for instance,
being almost exactly identical with those in ' The Crucifixion '
painted for the Dominican nuns. The figure of the Virgin recalls
the ecstatic Madonnas of his Italian period. St. John in wonder
ment and grief places his hand on the Virgin's shoulder to support
her in her agony. This action of St. John, when the picture was
engraved by Bolswert, was considered so irreverent that the engraver
was forced to alter the composition on his plate, by a change in the
position objected to.
In the dramatic momentariness, and in that which Mr. Claude
Phillips has rightly called the rhetorical quality of the passion, Van
Dyck shows strongly the influence of Italian art and Italian religion.
Sometimes he suggests a reminiscence of such dramatic works in
sculpture as the groups by Mazzoni at Modena, or those on the
Sacro Monte at Varallo. His paintings of the Passion and Agony
of the Saviour are rather direct, poignant appeals to the feelings of
the spectator than great decorative compositions, such as those of
Tintoretto or Rubens. This is shown again in the ' Crucifixion
with St. Francis,' painted by Van Dyck for the church of Notre
Dame at Termonde. In this the group of St. John, the Virgin
and the Magdalene, the anachronistic figure of St. Francis, and
the departing centurion, all pose to enhance the supreme tragedy
of the Crucifixion ; while the stormy sky, and the eclipsed sun (one
of Van Dyck's special motives), unite to denote the dramatic terror
of the moment.
In all the figures of the Crucified Christ, which Van Dyck
painted with such frequency and such facility, the body of the
63

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
Saviour is that of a robust and well-grown man in the full
development of life and beauty. There is nothing ascetic, nothing
emaciated, and the painter shrinks from the signs of blood and
wounds with which others have sought to stimulate the emotions
of the spectator. It is not surprising, therefore, to learn that the
peasants of the Bavarian village of Ober-Ammergau, seeking for
an ideal representation of the Crucified Saviour for the central
incident in the tragedy of their world-famous Passion Play, found
what they wanted in the Crucified Saviour of Van Dyck.
The commissions which now poured in upon Van Dyck
proved a test of his creative powers. These were never strong at
any time of his life, and his shortcomings in this respect were a
fatal drawback to the success which he had always hoped to attain
as a history-painter.
In early life he had through his environment looked to
Rubens not only for inspiration, but for the actual details of his
compositions. In Italy it was Titian, for there is hardly any
painting of the Holy Family or the Madonna in which the main
motive of the composition is not taken from the great Venetian.
He now harked back to Rubens. But the final note of the
painting is in all cases Van Dyck's own. Take, for instance, the
great picture of ' The Crucifixion ' painted by Van Dyck at this
time for the church of the Recollets at Mechlin, and now in the
collegiate church of St. Rombaut in that town. Here the
composition corresponds almost note for note with the mighty
picture of the same subject by Rubens in the Museum at
Antwerp. The painting by Rubens is one of his best as far as
construction and actual technical excellence are concerned. The
hand of a great master is felt throughout. All the same, it is the
painter who exacts the interest and admiration of the spectator,
and not the sacred incident depicted. In Van Dyck's painting
the composition is simplified, and by a slight rearrangement of the
figures, not by any means to the advantage of the composition as
such, a note of human dramatic interest is given to the scene
which is somewhat lacking in the work of Rubens.
A similar direct plagiarism from Rubens is to be found in the
' Elevation of the Cross,' painted by Van Dyck in 1631 for the
church of Notre Dame at Courtray. Here again the composition
is taken, as it were, note for note from the famous ' Elevation of
the Cross' by Rubens in the cathedral at Antwerp, even down
64

THE CRUCIFIXION
In the Cathedral of St. Rombaut, Mechlin

SACRED PICTURES
to the dog introduced by Rubens in the lower corner of the picture
to balance his composition. So far as the actual painting is
concerned, Rubens carries the day without difficulty. But here
again Van Dyck strikes a note of his own. Whereas in dealing
with such subjects other painters shrunk from offending religious
susceptibilities as to the sanctity of the figures of the Saviour and
the Virgin, Van Dyck has in this painting shown the execu
tioners raising the cross, not only by the cross itself, but by actual
rough handling of the Saviour's body, adding a poignant detail to
the agony which the Saviour is suffering with such divine resigna
tion. It is not surprising to read that, when the picture was first
exposed to view, it was severely criticised and objected to by some
whose feelings of propriety were outraged by this departure from
religious decorum. By good fortune the letters which passed
between the Canon of Courtray and Van Dyck have been
preserved in the chapter records at Courtray. From these it
appears that the painting was ordered by Rogier Braye, Canon of
Courtray. Van Dyck sent a sketch and asked 800 gulden for
his work. The worthy canon replied in verse that he would
not give more than 100 Flemish pounds to " Signor Antonio,"
and that the painter would be foolish not to take it.
" Schrijfven en vrijfven mij niet meer anne en staet ;
Dus de finaele resolutie hier mede gaet ;
Hondert ponden groot en niet meer sal ick Signor Antonio geven,
Op dat sijn fame te Cortrijck en sijn conste in onse kercke magh leven.
En wildt hij die niet accepteren ende ontfaen,
Seer onwijs sal hij sijn en Seer quaelijck beraen,
En meerder profijt van andere sal hij ontgaen."
Van Dyck agreed to accept this, and the painting was sent to
Courtray on May 8,1631. A further dispute arose, since the canons
wished to retain Van Dyck's sketch as well. Through the agency
apparently of Marcus van Woonsel, a merchant at Antwerp, the
matter was settled, Van Dyck receiving his money and twelve
sugar wafer biscuits (a speciality of Courtray), and sending his
sketch to the good Canon Braye.
Among other representations of the Crucifixion by Van Dyck
is the painting now in the Museum at Lille, representing ' Christ
on the Cross with the Virgin and St. Mary Magdalene.' An
interesting painting of ' Christ on the Cross with the Virgin, St.
John, and St. Mary Magdalene' is in the possession of Prior
Park College at Bath, and was shown at the Burlington House
65 K

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
Exhibition in 1899, to which Exhibition was also sent a similar
composition from St. Patrick's Church, Soho Square, London,
about which it is more difficult to speak with confidence. It is
also difficult to distinguish with any certainty among the numerous
small pictures of ' Christ on the Cross ' attributed to Van Dyck in
Italy, Germany, Belgium, and elsewhere, those which are un
doubtedly the work of Van Dyck, such as that painted for the
church of St. Augustine and now in the Museum at Antwerp,
those in the Royal Gallery at Munich, in the Palazzo Reale at
Genoa, in the Borghese Gallery at Rome, from others which may
be merely imitations by his more skilful followers. Special notice
may be taken, perhaps for its simple religious pathos, of ' Christ on
the Cross with St. Francis ' in the Ryksmuseum at Amsterdam.
One incident in the Passion of our Saviour has been ap
propriated to a peculiar extent by Van Dyck. This is the
' Lamentation over the Dead Body of Christ,' a subject known in
Italy as the ' Pieta,' and in Flanders by the expressive title of
' Nood Gods.' Here Van Dyck shows some creative power, and
an independence in composition not only of Rubens, but even of
Titian. In no renderings of the subject has grief been expressed
with such intensity, save perhaps in the groups by Mazzoni at
Modena. About 1629 Van Dyck painted for the high altar of
the church in the Be'guinage at Antwerp, the home of his sisters,
a ' Nood Gods,' which is now in the Museum at Antwerp. The
dead body of Christ lies, bearing but slight traces of his cruel
sufferings, on a rock in a cavern. The Virgin supports it, gazing
in mute appeal to heaven ; the Magdalene, with long fair hair and
in rich silk dress, kisses weeping the Saviour's hands ; St. John
looks on from the right with tears streaming from his eyes. This
picture has always enjoyed a great reputation, and justly so, and
still excites admiration, even in a damaged condition, at Antwerp.
Various reduced versions of the same composition exist, which
have been attributed to Van Dyck himself, but are probably
studio-repetitions, such as those in the Prado Gallery at Madrid,
and in the collection of Viscount Cobham at Hagley.
The same subject is treated in a different way by Van Dyck in
a large painting, of which two versions exist, one in the Royal
Gallery at Berlin, the other in the Prado Gallery at Madrid, while
another version is in the church of St. Egidius at Nuremberg.
The dead body of Christ lies on a rock as before, but the other
66

THE 'NOOD GODS'
figures are arranged differently. A weeping boy-angel introduced
in the lower part of the composition, who rather jars upon the
solemnity of the incident, is from the same model as the boy-angel
in the memorial painting to his father. Van Dyck dedicated the
engraving from this painting by Paulus Pontius to his sister Anna,
the nun in the convent of the Facontines at Antwerp.
Even more dramatic in its treatment is the ' Nood Gods' of
the similar paintings in the Royal Gallery at Munich and in the
Louvre. Here the dead Christ lies on the knees of His Mother,
behind whom is seen the cross. Two angels kneel in sympathetic
adoration, and a third, a boy-angel like that mentioned above, is
seen also. Cherubim are seen in the sky above.
The ' Crucifixion ' and the ' Nood Gods ' were probably the
subjects for which demand was principally made upon Van Dyck's
studio at Antwerp. Creation and composition not being Van
Dyck's strong points, it is evident that he had recourse to constant
repetitions, with slight variations, of the same paintings, as in the
instances just mentioned. It would appear also that he repeated and
revised some of the compositions of his earlier years. It is to this
period, therefore, that one may attribute the version of ' St. Martin
dividing his Cloak ' at Windsor Castle, where it is still attributed
to Rubens. This painting repeats almost exactly the picture at
Saventhem, though a beggar woman and child are introduced on
the right. In scale and treatment it is in close affinity to the
'Nood Gods' painted for the Bdguines at Antwerp. It was
probably painted for some member of the Spanish court, as it was
brought from Spain to England by Mr. Bagnolls, and purchased
for the royal collection by Frederick, Prince of Wales.
In the same way Van Dyck revised his earlier painting of
' The Crowning with Thorns,' and produced the superior and
more matured painting in the Prado Gallery at Madrid. In this
new version the Roman soldier on the left disappears, and in his
place a dog appears below and above an iron-barred window
through which two spectators look in upon the scene. Again, it is
probable that he now revised his great painting of ' The Betrayal
of Christ,' and, by omitting the group of St. Peter and Malchus
in the famous ' Prendimiento ' of Madrid, produced the more
sedate but less dramatic version in the collection of Lord Methuen
at Corsham. His various pictures of 'St. Sebastian' were prob
ably repeated often in his studio, the composition representing
67

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
* Angels extracting Arrows from the Body of St. Sebastian ' being
of frequent occurrence in private collections. His painting, too, of
' Charity,' a woman with a number of children about her, the
original picture of which, painted in Italy, is in the Turin Gallery,
was now revised and repeated in the various pictures to be found
in private collections in England, such as those of Lord Methuen
and the Earl of Lonsdale, and also in the Dulwich Gallery.
For paintings of 'The Holy Family' there seems to have
been less demand at Antwerp than in Italy. When the Italian
influence was still paramount with him, he painted the exquisite
' Repose in Egypt ' in the Royal Gallery at Munich, with its rich
Titianesque background of trees. It will be seen hereafter that he
repeated more than once ' The Repose in Egypt, with a Dance of
Angels.' One of the most important and characteristic paintings
of this class is ' The Virgin and Child with two Donors,' now in
the Louvre, which obviously belongs to the period of the great
sacred compositions mentioned above, and forms a link with that
side of Van Dyck's art which is more familiar and more remark
able in every way, his portraits.
Among other works of a religious character, Van Dyck painted
for the church of the Capuchins at Brussels ' St. Anthony of
Padua with the Child Jesus ' and ' St. Francis in Ecstasy,' both of
which are now in the Museum at Brussels ; for Lille he painted
' The Miracle of St. Anthony of Toulouse ' ; for the church of
St. George at Antwerp, 'St. George on Horseback'; for the
church of the Rdcollets at Mechlin, ' St. Bonaventura receiving
the Sacrament from an Angel ' ; for the church of the Jesuits at
Mechlin, ' St. Francis listening to the Celestial Music,' now in
the Imperial Gallery at Vienna. A fine painting of ' St. Francis '

Sp«
Lucy, Esq., was painted by Van Dyck for Philip IV. of Spain,
and was given by Joseph Buonaparte to Marshal Soult.
It is noteworthy that in all the pictures at this date in which
Van Dyck introduces the Virgin Mary he adheres to his Italian
type of model, with the dark hair, regular features, and dignified
expression of the Roman race. The type of model which he uses
for St. Mary Magdalene, S. Rosalia, and other female saints has
been supposed to be taken from his own sister, Susanna ; but, as a
68

THE BETRAYAL OF CHRIST
In the collection of Lord Methuen at Corsham

'SAMSON AND DELILAH'
similar type appears in the paintings by Rubens, it is more
probable that Van Dyck simply appropriated it from his master.
When, however, Van Dyck came to treat subjects of a more
voluptuous character, he had recourse to a model more in keeping
with the subject. He depicts a woman with a robust and fully
developed body and ample bust, the limbs almost masculine in
their strength and vigorous growth, a face with the features of a
goddess, the rounded chin melting into the swelling neck, and
thence into the luscious contours of the bosom. Long golden hair
falls back from the broad forehead, and ripples on and behind the
shoulders. The mouth is half open, to show the lips of pleasure.
The type is one more readily associated with Titian and Palma
Vecchio than with Rubens and his so-called " Flemish mares."
Few painters have summed up voluptuous charm so well as the
painter who wrote " quel admirabil petto " under Titian's nymph in
the Borghese Gallery. This beautiful model appears as Delilah in
the painting of ' Samson and Delilah ' now in the Imperial Gallery
at Vienna. Another version of the same subject is in the Dulwich
Gallery, and a copy of the Vienna picture is at Hampton Court.
The subject has seldom been rendered more expressively. Delilah
reclines with her robes in voluptuous disorder, a silk mantle of the
truest Titianesque pink over her body. Samson, his brawny
limbs showing rich tones of brown in the skin, struggles, half
hearted as it would seem, with his captors, almost forgetting his
shame and her crime in the intoxication of Delilah's smile.
The same enchantress occurs again in the Imperial Gallery at
Vienna in a painting of the same character as the ' Samson and
Delilah,' representing ' Venus demanding Arms from Vulcan for
her Son ^Eneas,' or, as it has sometimes been interpreted, ' Thetis
demanding Arms from Vulcan for Achilles.' The presence of
the God of Love in the air with his bow and arrows would denote
that the former interpretation is correct. Here the chief notes in
the painting are the same as in the ' Samson and Delilah,' but the
composition offers Van Dyck an opportunity for the introduction
of a group of amorini, in the treatment of which Van Dyck shows
himself the pupil, not only of Titian, but even of Albrecht Diirer,
with whose engravings he was certainly acquainted. In this picture
one amorino playfully helps to hold the ungainly breastplate against
the soft yielding body of the goddess, another puts on the huge
helmet over his tiny head, and others disport themselves with
69

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
sword and shield in pleasing and graceful attitudes. A second
version of the same subject is in the Louvre. In this the subject
is treated vertically instead of horizontally, and the effect is less
pleasing than in the Vienna picture. The poses are more mannered
and academic, and the poetry and humour of the Vienna picture
have disappeared. The same model may be traced in a small
picture at Hampton Court representing ' David with the Head of
Goliath.' This is probably a studio reduction of a larger painting
by Van Dyck. The head is that of Delilah and Venus, but it is
now added to the body of a supersensuous and somewhat epicene
youth. In such compositions Van Dyck reveals the sense of poetry
which pervades his work, even his portraits, and which is lacking
in the work of Rubens. A painting representing ' Time clipping
the Wings of Love,' which was formerly in the collection of the
Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim Palace, was purchased by the
great portrait-painter, Sir John Millais, P.R.A., on account of the
poetry which Millais found in the composition. There could be
no better tribute to Van Dyck than this appreciation by one who
was to take as high a place in the art-history of England as his
great forerunner. Poetry, too, is worthily interpreted in the scene
from Ariosto, in which Van Dyck depicted ' Rinaldo in the
Enchanted Garden of Armida.' Van Dyck painted more than
one picture of this subject. The most pleasing is that which was
commissioned by Endymion Porter for the King of England, to
which allusion will be made later. The version in the Louvre is
less satisfactory, though again the playful gambols of the numerous
amorini relieve the rather clumsy pose of the two principal figures.
A painting, exhibited as 'Tancred and Herminia ' at the Burlington
House Exhibition in 1900, and belonging to Earl Fitzwilliam, is
probably only a school-picture painted from the fine drawing of
' Rinaldo and Armida' in the collection of Sir J. C. Robinson.
Other paintings from mythology and romance are to be found
in private collections in England and elsewhere, such as the large
' Venus and Adonis ' belonging to Sir Francis Cook at Richmond.
It is difficult to speak with certainty as to the authenticity of such
paintings ; for Van Dyck left many sketches for such subjects,
which may have been utilized by his pupils and imitators, like the
picture of 'Rinaldo and Armida' last mentioned. It is difficult
also to speak with certainty as to certain paintings of a more frankly
70

SECULAR PAINTINGS
nude character, such as ' Danae receiving the Golden Shower ' in
the Royal Gallery at Dresden, in which the violent action and
movement of the figures give a tone of coarseness which is hardly
in keeping with Van Dyck's usual sensitive reticence, while the
cold and rather hard rendering of the flesh would suggest some
contemporary compatriot, such as Frans Luyckx or Jan van
Hoecke. This painting may be contrasted with the beautiful
picture, ' Diana and Endymion surprised by a Satyr,' in the Prado
Gallery at Madrid, which was evidently modelled on Titian in
his later days, with perhaps a suggestion of Tintoretto in the
composition. This picture, however, may perhaps be referred to
Van Dyck's Italian period. Here the nude body of the goddess
melts into the surrounding gloom, from which the shadowy figures
of Endymion and the satyr hardly detach themselves, whereas in
the ' Danae ' the nudity asserts itself on its gilded settee with all
the prosaic details of a professional wanton.
A similar uncertainty must attach to a painting of ' The Three
Graces,' formerly in the possession of Sir George Beaumont, and
now in that of Dott. Cerani de Landfort at Nice. This painting
is attributed to 1622, the period of Van Dyck's first residence in
Genoa ; but it bears traces of a maturity and self-consciousness
which are not characteristic of Van Dyck's work at that date,
especially in the treatment of such mythological subjects as the
' Jupiter and Antiope.'
With the numerous representations of ' Cupid ' and similar
subjects attributed to Van Dyck it is impossible to deal here. As a
painter who took a special pleasure in depicting children, Van
Dyck may have from time to time painted numerous ' Cupids ' and
' Infant Christs' just as he did ' The Crucifixion' and ' St. Sebastian.'
It should be remembered, however, that it was just these pleasing
groups and details which most attracted the attention of the imitator,
who extracted them and worked them up again. This can be
illustrated by a picture belonging to Sir Charles Turner in England,
and exhibited at the Burlington House Exhibition in 1900, repre
senting 'An Allegory of Time,' in which the winged genius is taken
direct from the mourning boy-angel in the memorial picture of
' The Crucifixion ' at Antwerp.

7i

CHAPTER VIII
Portraits painted by Van Dyck at Antwerp— The Regent Isabella, De Moncada, and
others— Marie Luigia de Tassis— Marie de' Medicis
THE paintings of sacred history, mythology, romance, and
other historical subjects enumerated in the last chapter, would
suffice for the career of any ordinary painter, especially as
the list does not pretend to be exhaustive. Van Dyck was no
ordinary painter. His command of the technical side of his art
was complete, and the facility and rapidity of his production
have seldom, if ever, been equalled, taking into consideration the
extremely high quality and finish of his work at this period. While
striving with by no means unqualified success to outrival Rubens as
a historical and decorative painter, Van Dyck was at the same time
engaged upon that side of his art in which he without question
reigned supreme, that of portrait-painting. A review of the portraits
painted by Van Dyck during the five or six years which elapsed
between his return from Italy and his removal to England makes it
almost impossible to believe that the same man should have had time
to paint these and the important large pictures previously described.
A keen eye, an acute and subtle intelligence, a precise and lucid
mind, a sure and accurate hand — all of these contributed to Van
Dyck's success. There is no bungling or hesitation, no timidity
or bombast, no excess or deficiency in Van Dyck's portrait-work.
It is the art of a consummate workman, a complete master of his craft,
without any inclination to stretch it beyond its limits, and at the
same time a man of commanding individuality. This is the more
remarkable, because in all his previous work Van Dyck had shown
a feverish energy and susceptibility to emotions and influence from
without, which he now seems to have outgrown.
One notable feature of Van Dyck's portraits at this date is their
austerity. Black and white prevail in them, in the skirts and
mantles of the women, as in the cloaks and jerkins of the men. It
is this negation of colour, as the be-all and end-all of portraiture,
which enhances Van Dyck's portraits as types of character, and
entitles him to be called the Velazquez of the north. The general
72

THE REGENT ISABELLA
sombreness of dress, both among courtiers and burghers, may be
perhaps due to the influence of the Spanish court at Brussels and
Antwerp, as at Madrid. The Regent of the Netherlands, Isabella
Clara Eugenia, was now a widow, her consort, the Archduke Albert
of Austria, having died shortly before Van Dyck's return from Italy.
After her husband's death she entered the Order of the Poor Clares
and adopted their dress. The austerity of their Regent probably
extended itself to her court and its surroundings. Isabella, a true
Hapsburg, was quick to perceive the value of Van Dyck's art.
She appointed him her court-painter and gave him an annuity of
250 gulden. In this capacity Van Dyck painted a number of
portraits of the Regent in her religious garb, destined no doubt to
be sent by Isabella as presents to her royal relations or allies.
The portrait of the Regent is in all cases the same, though varying
in size. That in the Royal Gallery at Turin is at full length, standing
in a black, gray, and white robe. The simplicity is startling. Over
the white kerchief on her bosom, and under the black hood, the
hard and shrewd but kindly features of Philip II.'s daughter look
out on the spectator, and help to illustrate the paradox, that the best
ruler of a country is often a woman. Repetitions exist, mostly of
great excellence, in the Louvre, at Parma, at Vienna, at Devonshire
House, and elsewhere. One of the best is that belonging to the
Earl of Hopetoun at Hopetoun House near Edinburgh, of which
Mr. Claude Phillips has well said: "For strength and grimness
of characterization, for uncompromising realism, for monachal
severity, this particular portrait stands alone in the ceuvre of Van
Dyck ; and the steel-gray harmony of the picture, into which not
one positive note of colour has been allowed to penetrate, expresses
to perfection the painter's idea."
The same austerity pervades, in a slightly relaxed form, the
portraits of the leading Spanish courtiers and functionaries. Chief
among these was Francisco de Moncada, Marques d'Aytona, in
1633 commander-in-chief of the Spanish forces in the Netherlands,
and at this time highest in the Regent's Council. Van Dyck
painted Moncada on horseback in one of the finest portraits of any
time, now in the Louvre. It is interesting to contrast the cold
impassive self-confidence of the Spanish general, as he sits on his
horse, that white horse with flowing mane which was the painter's
predilection from his youth, with the passionate grace and beauty
of the young Anton Giulio Brignole-Sala at Genoa, and again
73 l

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
with the nonchalant royal dignity of Charles I. as he rides under
the arch at Windsor Castle. Moncada was painted by Van Dyck
in bust form in the portraits now in the Louvre and the Imperial
Gallery at Vienna. It is further possible to recognize the lineaments
of Moncada, perhaps a year or two older in age, in one of the fine
full-length portraits in the gallery at Cassel.
Van Dyck had painted Spinola, as has been stated before. In
1629 Spinola had been succeeded as commander-in-chief of the
Spanish forces in the Netherlands by Hendrik, Comte de Bergh,
a near relative of the house of Orange. Van Dyck painted the
Comte de Bergh in one of his most vigorous portraits, now in
the Prado Gallery at Madrid. The type is that of the robust
northerner, the muscular power of the hand and the strong honest
features being in contrast to those of the cold and impassive
Spaniard. A reduced copy of this portrait of Hendrik de Bergh
is at Windsor Castle. A fine portrait of a man in armour in the
Imperial Gallery at Vienna seems to bear his name in error.
Carlo Colonna and Ottavio Piccolomini, Italian noblemen and
commanders, like Spinola, in the Spanish army, were painted by
Van Dyck, as were Francisco Lelio Blancatcio, Sigismondo
Sfandrato, Marques de Montasie, Andrea Cantelmo, and other
Spanish generals. Other Spanish grandees sat to Van Dyck,
such as Antonio di Zuniga e Davila, Marques de Mirabella, of
whom there are portraits in the Royal Gallery at Munich and at
Warwick Castle, Don Alvarez Bazan, Marques de Santa Cruz,
and Don Emmanuel Frockas Pereira y Pimentel, Conde di Feria,
who may be identified with a fine full-length portrait in the
collection of Earl Cowper at Panshanger. Jean de Montfort, the
court chamberlain, is seen in a strongly painted portrait by Van
Dyck in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna. In 1628 Van Dyck
painted a full-length portrait of Wolfgang Wilhelm, Duke of Julich
and Cleve, who had just been raised to the independent sovereignty
of Neuburg in the Palatinate. The Prince of Pfalz-Neuburg is
attired in sober black, and by his side stands a noble dog ; a sketch
for this portrait is in the British Museum.
The noble families of Brabant and Flanders, such as those of
Arenberg, De Ligne, Croy, and Tassis, were not slow to avail
themselves of the chances offered them by Van Dyck, who had
shown himself beyond all his contemporaries without rival in the
interpretation of high birth and breeding in both sexes. From the
74

ANNE MARIE DE CAMUDIO, WIFE OF FERDINAND DE
BOISSCHOT, SEIGNEUR DE SAVENTHEM
In the collection of the Due d' Arenberg at Brussels

iAiXA

NOBLE FAMILIES
family of Croy came the stately Genevieve d'Urfe, Marquise de
Havre\ the portrait of whom, seated in a chair, was one of those
most frequently repeated by Van Dyck or copied by his pupils,
similar versions of it being in the collections of the Marquess of
Lothian at Newbattle Abbey, Sir Francis Cook at Richmond,
Consul Weber at Hamburg (from Blenheim Palace), in the Royal
Gallery at Munich, and elsewhere. This lady was the second
wife of Charles Alexandre de Croy, Marquis de Havrd, who had
left her a widow in 1624. The Marquis de Havre" was the father,
by his first wife, Yolande de Ligne, of an only daughter, Marie
Claire de Croy, married to her cousin, Charles Philippe Alexandre
de Croy, Due de Havrd, who died in 1640, and secondly to another
cousin, Philippe Francois de Croy. This lady, Marie Claire de
Croy, was painted, with her child, by Van Dyck in a charming
full-length portrait in the collection of Mr. Fawkes at Farnley
Hall, near Leeds. Two fine full-length portraits of a husband and
wife in the Royal Gallery at Munich bear the name of the ' Due'
and ' Duchesse de Croy,' but they must be so named in error, as
they cannot be identified with any of the personages cited here.
In 1630 Van Dyck painted a charming portrait of another
great lady, Anne Marie, daughter of Pedro Vasquez de Camudio,
of a Biscayan family, and wife of Ferdinand de Boisschot, Comte
d'Erps and Baron of Saventhem, the same who gave Van Dyck
the commission for the painting of ' St. Martin dividing his Cloak '
at Saventhem. The lady sits like the Duchesse de Croy, in rich
but sober-coloured robes, her hands so disposed as to show their
extreme elegance and beauty. The whole portrait is interesting
as showing true Spanish beauty, as treated with the refined elegance
of Van Dyck, rather than with the somewhat farouche veracity of
Velasquez. The portrait of her husband, Ferdinand de Boisschot,
who was at one time ambassador to the courts of France and
England, has been traced in that of a knight with the order of St.
Jago in the collection of M. Ch. Ldon Cardon at Brussels.
With the portrait of Anne Marie de £amudio it is easy to
connect the gracious and fascinating portrait of Maria Luigia de
Tassis, which has for long entranced all visitors to the Liechtenstein
Gallery at Vienna. This portrait has deservedly been reckoned
among the principal triumphs of Van Dyck, and indeed is gener
ally allowed to rank among the masterpieces of the painter's art.
From corner to corner the canvas is replete with all that denotes
75

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
the work of a consummate artist, from the curve of her lace collar
to the line of the ostrich feathers in her fan. Full of charm and
espieglerie, the fair Maria Luigia looks out for all time, a joy and a
pleasure to those who are lucky enough to behold her. What more
can the art of the portrait-painter achieve? In the same gallery
hangs the portrait of Antonio de Tassis, a canon at Antwerp, in
ecclesiastical dress, who was probably one of the same great family.
It would be tedious to enumerate the various burghers,
merchants, artists, and ladies of Antwerp whom Van Dyck painted
during those few years. They all show the same sobriety and
austerity of colour, combined with such supreme elegance of pose
and such gracious aspect that, if any fault can be found with them,
it would be to say that Van Dyck could not help translating his
burgher and artist friends into nobles or princes of the blood.
The men are generally clad in black, the dazzling whiteness of the
flat falling collars being the base, as it were, on which the painting
of the face is supported. The stiff high ruffs have to a great extent
disappeared, and been replaced by a broad cambric collar lying
in soft folds upon the shoulder, while the plain white wristbands
are now of cambric edged with lace. The women have now
discarded their stiff ruffs, gold brocaded boddices, and tight sleeves,
in favour of a dress open at the neck, with a high stiff lace collar at
the back of the neck, and large sleeves of slashed silk tied at the
elbow. The hair in the upper ranks of society is no longer drawn
back tight from the forehead and fastened with a jewelled ribbon
at the back, but clusters in short waving curls all round the head.
The older fashions, however, lingered for some time among the
burgher classes, so that it is difficult to date portraits with any
certainty on the ground of the costume.
Some portraits by Van Dyck are difficult to date with any
precision, such as the portrait of a man with a child in the Louvre,
known as 'Jean Grusset Richardot and his Son,' although it
can hardly, owing to a question of age, represent the celebrated
diplomatist and secretary of the Archduke and Archduchess of
Austria. Here the handling is that of Rubens, to whom the
portrait is sometimes ascribed ; and if the painting be given to
Van Dyck, as seems to be correct, it would naturally be attributed
to the time when he was under the immediate influence of Rubens.
It shows, however, some maturities of expression and composition
about it, which make one shrink from classing it with the earlier
76

MARIA LUIGIA DI TASSIS
In the Liechtenstein Collection, Vienna

HELENA FOURMENT
works described before. Similarly the remarkable portrait of a
' Man with a Glove' in the Royal Gallery at Dresden has recently
been ascribed to Van Dyck, instead of Rubens, and correctly
so ; but it is difficult to class this masterpiece of brilliant painting
and momentary action with the less decided portraits of Van
Dyck's youth. In this the painter adds to the maturity of Rubens
the verve and audacity of Frans Hals. Perhaps that was painted
after Van Dyck's visit to Hals in Holland, and also a pair of
anonymous portraits in the Hermitage Gallery at St. Petersburg,
which have a similar look of Hals about them.
Rubens and Van Dyck were now on terms of equality as
painters, and there is nothing to indicate anything but the most
cordial and generous friendship between the two artists. Van Dyck
painted Rubens several times. In 1630 Rubens not only returned
to Antwerp from his diplomatic mission, and commenced a new
period of remarkable activity as a painter, but he also renewed
the joy and comfort of his home by his marriage with Helena
Fourment, that fair buxom lady who pervades the subsequent
paintings of Rubens as his principal model. Among the pictures
purchased by the Empress Catherine of Russia from the Walpole
Collection at Houghton Hall, and now in the Hermitage Gallery
at St. Petersburg, was an upright painting representing Helena
Fourment. The portrait was always considered in Sir Robert
Walpole's collection to be the work of Van Dyck, and to have
been painted by him to fill a particular position in the house of
Rubens at Antwerp, a statement which its very peculiar size
would seem to bear out very well. Modern critics, such as M.
Max Rooses, whose judgment must be respected, have ascribed
this painting to the hand of Rubens on the ground of the technical
handling of the flesh-tints. It may, on the other hand, be urged
that the whole pose and conception of the portrait is that of Van
Dyck : the left hand with its parted fingers, the line of the collar
and the ostrich-feather fan, the tilt of the hat with its long feathers,
the expression of the eye are all more characteristic of the painter
of the ' Maria Luigia de Tassis' than the painter of the ' Helena
Fourment' at Vienna. The bosom is that of Helena Fourment,
and if that was to be the model for Rubens for the future, it might
well be the model for Van Dyck at the moment. Perhaps,
however, the portrait of Helena Fourment should be ascribed to
Van Dyck's visit to Antwerp in 1634.
77

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
It is difficult, again, to date the interesting double portrait of a
'Husband and Wife' in the Esterhazy Collection now in the
Academy at Buda-Pest, which, like the portraits just named, some
would still attribute to Rubens. The costume and other details
would lead one to place it earlier among Van Dyck's works ; but,
like the ' Man with a Glove,' it has a completeness about it which
denotes a later date. The intensity of the husband's expression
invites the idea that the painter of this double portrait was not
unacquainted with the works of Lorenzo Lotto.
It is also difficult to be sure about two portraits of men in the
Liechtenstein Gallery at Vienna, each of whom wears a medal
with the head of Archduke Albert of Austria. One of these men
resembles the historian Erycius Puteanus (Du Puy), whom Van
Dyck drew for his ' Iconographie,' the other an aged bald-headed
man, evidently a personage of importance, has not as yet been
identified. The same difficulty applies to a well-known portrait
in the Royal Gallery at Dresden, representing a young man in
armour with long flowing hair, and a red ribbon round his left
arm. This remarkable young man with his thick sensuous lips,
broad nose, and large earnest eyes, resembles the Italian condottieri
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Beautiful as the picture
is — a reminiscence, it would seem, of Giorgione — a doubt may be
hazarded as to whether it be really the work of Van Dyck.
The perfection of elegance and refinement, akin to that in the
paintings of his Genoese period, is shown in the portraits, un
fortunately as yet unidentified, of ' A Man with a Child ' and ' A
Lady with a Child ' in the Louvre. It would be difficult to excel
the gracious dignity of these portraits. The same charm, though
by no means the same sense of aristocratic breeding, pervades the
companion full-length portraits, at present unidentified, of the so-
called ' Burgomaster of Antwerp ' and his wife in the Royal-
Gallery at Munich. In the same gallery is a fine full-length
portrait of a dark man of Spanish type, also unidentified at present.
To these may be added the imposing full-length portrait of Frans
van der Borcht, apparently a naval commander from the ships in
the background, in the Ryksmuseum at Amsterdam. But even
these may be thought to yield the place of honour to the majestic
full-length portraits of ' Philippe le Roy, Seigneur de Ravels,'
painted in 1630, and his young wife, painted in 1631, which were
purchased by the Marquess of Hertford, and are now among the
78

FRANS VAN DER BORCHT
In the Ryksmuseum, Amsterdam

FRIENDS AND CONTEMPORARIES
principal treasures of the wonderful collection in Hertford House,
Manchester Square, lately bequeathed to the British nation by the
widow of Sir Richard Wallace. Mention should also be made of
the full-length portrait of ' Charlotte Smit van Croyinghen, wife ot
Alexander Butkens, Seigneur d'Ancy,' with her son, which is in
the private collection of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg at Gotha.
To describe the numerous portraits by Van Dyck of his
friends and contemporaries at Antwerp would be to turn a history
into a catalogue. There is little or no deviation from the general
high scale of merit in their execution. Among them may be noted
those of Jan Malderus, Bishop of Antwerp, in the Museum at
Antwerp ; Antoine Triest, Bishop of Ghent, in the Hermitage
Gallery, St. Petersburg, and elsewhere ; his brother Nicolas
Triest, Burgomaster of Ghent, a splendid portrait in the collection
of Earl Brownlow at Ashridge, who also owns a fine portrait of
Jacques le Roy, Seigneur d'Herbais ; Jan van den Wouwer,
the celebrated scholar, at the Hermitage Gallery, St. Petersburg,
and at Woburn Abbey, and his wife, Mme. van de Wouwer, in the
Royal Gallery at Dresden, where it is attributed to Rubens, both
of these portraits being perhaps to be ascribed to an earlier date in
Van Dyck's career ; Albertus Mirseus, a noble portrait in the
collection of the Duke of Bedford at Woburn Abbey ; Frederik
de Marselaer, in the National Gallery of Ireland at Dublin ;
Alexandre della Faille, a magistrate at Antwerp, in the Royal
Gallery at Antwerp, and Jean Charles della Faille, a Jesuit priest
of the same family, in the Della Faille collection at Antwerp ;
Sebastian van Leers, burgomaster of Antwerp, with his wife and son,
in the gallery at Cassel ; and many other citizens of importance.
Among his special friends seems to have been Eberhard Jabach,
a rich banker of Cologne, who was during these years managing a
branch establishment at Antwerp, and was in later years to be so
distinguished a benefactor to the French nation. Van Dyck painted
Jabach three times at different periods of his life; one of these
portraits is in the Hermitage Gallery at St. Petersburg, another
is in the Gallery at Cologne.
Among the artist friends of Van Dyck who were painted by
him were the sculptor Andreas Colyns de Nole and his wife, in the
two admirable portraits in the Royal Gallery at Munich ; the
engraver Carel van Mallery, in the same gallery, and many repeti
tions elsewhere ; Quintin Symons, the painter, in the Royal Gallery
79

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
at the Hague; Martin Pepyn, the painter, painted in 1632, and
lately purchased for the Museum at Antwerp from the collection of
M. Kums ; Gaspar de Crayer, the painter, in the Liechtenstein
Gallery at Vienna ; Paul de Vos, whose portrait by Van Dyck was
in the possession of the King of the Belgians, and perished in the
fire at the Palace of Laeken in 1890, and Isabella Waerbeke, his
wife, whose portrait is now in the Wallace Collection at Hertford
House ; Jean Baptiste Franck in the Fabre collection at Montpelier,
a replica or copy being in the Stadel Institut at Frankfurt-am-
Main ; Pieter Snayers, the battle-painter, whose portrait is perhaps
to be identified with that called ' Snellincx ' at Windsor Castle ;
Andries van Ertvelt, the marine-painter, in the Augsburg Gallery;
and many others, who appear in the series of portraits known as
the ' Iconographie.' One of Van Dyck's special friends seems to
have been Hendrik Liberti, a musician and organist at Antwerp ;
this beardless, affected youth was painted several times by Van
Dyck, and there are curious points of analogy in the portraits of
Liberti and the youthful portraits of Van Dyck which indicate
a similarity of character and temperament. Repetitions of this
painting exist in the Royal Gallery at Munich, the Prado Gallery
at Madrid, and in the collection of the Duke of Grafton. The last-
named portrait, as well as the same owner's portrait of Van Dyck,
was in the possession of the Grafton family as far back as 1677,
when John Evelyn, the diarist, saw among other paintings "two of
Van Dyck's, of which one was his own picture at length when young,
in a leaning posture, the other an Eunuch singing."
Somewhat apart from the other works of Van Dyck is the
fine portrait of Marten Ryckaert, the one-armed painter, of which
fine repetitions exist in the Liechtenstein Gallery at Vienna, in the
Prado Gallery at Madrid, and in the Royal Gallery at Dresden,
while copies are to be found in several private collections in England.
In this portrait the painter sits in a chair, clad in a fur-lined robe
with a fur-trimmed cap upon his head. His under-garment is of
rich crimson silk, the whole scheme of colour being different from
that in the majority of Van Dyck's portraits at this period. His
right hand grasps the arm of the chair, and is, at all events in the
Madrid version, one of Van Dyck's most masterly achievements.
Van Dyck's house at Antwerp was remarkable for its simplicity
as compared with the magnificent hdtel which Rubens had built for
himself He had in it, however, a choice collection of paintings by
80

ANDREAS COLYNS DE NOLE, SCULPTOR, AND HIS WIFE
In the Royal Gallery, Munich
ne juh/

MARIE DE MEDICIS
Titian and other artists, which are referred to by a picture-restorer,.
Jean Baptiste Bruno of Antwerp, who in an action at law in
December, 1630, put in a certificate signed by Rubens, Seghers,
and Van Dyck. In August, 1631, the Queen-Mother of France,
Marie de' Medicis, took refuge in the Netherlands, and resided at
Antwerp, as the guest of the Regent Isabella, from September 4
to October 16. The queen, who was accompanied by her son,
Gaston, Due d' Orleans, not only visited her old friend Rubens,
who had made her glorious and immortal at the Palais de Luxem
bourg in Paris, but she also visited Van Dyck. It is specially
noted by her secretary, Pierre de la Serre, that she saw in his
house " le cabinet de Titien : Je veux dire tous les Chefs d'eeuvre
de ce grand Maistre." Van Dyck painted the queen's portrait
more than once. De la Serre was so enthusiastic about the portrait
that he compared it with the ' Helena' of Apelles, and said that
Van Dyck would share with Titian the highest fame. Portraits of
Marie de' Medicis, ascribed to Van Dyck, are not uncommon,
those in the Borghese Gallery at Rome, and in the collection of the
Earl of Radnor at Longford Castle being noteworthy. A fine
though rather damaged example, representing the queen seated
at full length, with a view of Antwerp in the distance, is in the
collection of M. le Chevalier Decker at Chateau Dittersbach, Kreis
Liiben. On May 10, 1631, Van Dyck stood sponsor in St. George's
Church at Antwerp to a daughter of the engraver Lucas Vorsterman,
and the child was christened Antonia. Vorsterman had just returned
from a few years' residence in England, where he had gone after his
outbreak of insanity and his breach with Rubens. He was now to
be associated with Van Dyck in engraving many of his works.
The painter Erasmus Quellinus is responsible for a statement that
Van Dyck offered to paint Vorsterman in full length in exchange
for a drawing of Christ at half length, which Vorsterman had made
from a painting by Rubens.
On February 12, 1631, Van Dyck sent a power of attorney to
the painter Lenaert van Winde at the Hague, as to the payment
for certain paintings delivered. This would seem to show that
Van Dyck had already made a journey to Holland, where he was
summoned by the Stadtholder, Prince Frederick Henry of Orange,
and his art-loving wife, Amalia van Solms. He painted the portraits
of these two personages several times, and no doubt, as in the case
8l M

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
of the Regent Isabella, their portraits by Van Dyck were most
welcome as presents from the Prince and Princess of Orange to
their friends. Good examples are in the Prado Gallery at Madrid,
at Worlitz, and elsewhere. Amalia van Solms was a great appre-
ciator of Van Dyck. After her death there were among her
possessions a ' St. Mary,' ' Thetis demanding Arms from Vulcan
for Achilles,' " une grande piece avec la representation des portraits
de la maison d'Angleterre," ' Charity,' "un jeune Prince couvert
d'un Bonnet," ' Rinaldo and Armida,' and portraits of herself and her
husband, which were divided among her daughters. Bellori says
that Van Dyck painted for the Prince of Orange " una favola del
Pastor Fido," and that the same prince purchased from Van
Dyck " La Vergine Col Bambino Giesu avanti alcuni Angioletti
che ballano." At the sale of the pictures at the Castle of Loo
this ' Holy Family with a Dance of Angels' was sold for 12,050
florins. It may perhaps be identified with the version now in the
collection of Lord Ashburton. Besides this picture there were in
the collection of the princes of Orange ' Time clipping the Wings
of Love' (perhaps the Blenheim Palace and Millais picture),
* Achilles at Scyros ' (perhaps the picture belonging to the Earl of
Listowel), ' An Allegory of Love,' ' The School of Love,' and
* Rinaldo and Armida.'
During his visit to Holland, Van Dyck paid the famous visit
to Frans Hals at Haarlem which has been handed down to pos
terity by the historian of art, Arnold Houbraken. Houbraken
tells how there came into the studio of the jovial Frans Hals a
handsome young man in silk and velvet clothes, with plumed hat,
gloves, and all the appearance of an elegant dandy and dilettante,
which afforded a great contrast to the careless and almost slovenly
habits of Hals. The young man bade Hals make a portrait of
him as quickly as possible, for he had only a short time to spare
there. Within half an hour Hals had sketched in one of those
marvellous sleight-of-hand portraits for which he was so famous.
Van Dyck, on seeing this, said in a languid tone of voice that he
would like to try in return to make a portrait of Hals in as short
a time. Hals settled himself, rather amused at the situation, in
a big leather chair, and watched the young man begin. As he
progressed Hals saw that the painter's hand was not that of a tyro,
and that he was evidently no mere amateur. At last, jumping
from his chair, he rushed to the easel and, seeing the portrait,
82

A HUSBAND AND WIFE
In the Esterhazy Collection, Royal Academy, Buda-Pest

VAN DYCK IN HOLLAND
cried out, " You are Van Dyck, for no one else could do a thing
like that." Upon which the two painters embraced warmly.
On this journey too, or perhaps upon his way to England,
Van Dyck may have found himself the guest at Rotterdam of an
old friend, Hendrik du Bois, a painter of Antwerp, and pupil of
Hans de Wael, who had settled at Rotterdam with his wife
Helena, daughter of Eland Gysbrechts Tromper of that city.
Van Dyck painted both their portraits, which came to their son,
Simon du Bois, a painter settled in England, who bequeathed
them, and the engraver's plates made from them by Cornelis
de Visscher, to his patron, Lord Chancellor Somers : from Lord
Somers they passed to the Earl of Hardwicke at Wimpole, and
at the dispersal of the Wimpole Collection they were separated,
the portrait of Du Bois himself passing to the Stadel-Institut at
Frankfurt-am- Main, and that of Helena Tromper to an American
collection, in which it is catalogued as that of a princess of royal
birth.

&3

CHAPTER IX
Van Dyck invited to England— Rinaldo and Armida— Reasons for leaving Antwerp-
Sir Balthasar Gerbier— Arrival in England— Henrietta Maria and Theodorus Van
Dyck— Return to Antwerp— Paintings for the Court at Brussels— The Cardinal
Infant — Return to Antwerp and England.
THE time was now approaching for an important event in the
career of Van Dyck — his removal to the court of Charles I.
in England. Times had changed greatly in England since
Van Dyck's first visit in 1620. Charles I. had succeeded his
father on the throne in 1625, and had taken to wife, as his queen,
Henrietta Maria, one of the daughters of Henry IV. and^ Marie
de' Medicis. Buckingham had fallen beneath the assassin's knife
at Portsmouth, and the whole of Europe was the quieter for his
removal. Charles himself gained in power and popularity when
his brilliant and unscrupulous favourite was no longer there to
tyrannize over him. The court of Charles and Henrietta Maria
was second to none in splendour and dignity. Masques, revels,
banquets, the chase were indulged in with a refined and pleasant
insouciance, and without many of the disreputable excesses which
disgraced the court of the second Charles. The king and
queen set an example of domestic felicity which reacted upon
their courtiers. The clouds were gathering on the horizon, but as
yet no rumble had been heard of the storm to be raised by the
struggle for supremacy between the king and his Parliament.
Charles himself was a connoisseur of painting of no mean merit.
This, moreover, was personal to himself, and not merely a pose
adopted by a monarch with a taste for patronage and luxurious
magnificence. The Earl of Arundel alone excelled the king in
expert knowledge of the fine arts. The collection of paintings,
bronzes, medals, and other works of art made by the king, including
as it did the bulk of the celebrated picture gallery of the Gonzagas
at Mantua, has never, with the exception of that formed by the
Earl of Arundel, been equalled by any similar collection before or
after. Even at the present day neither the autocratic power of a
despot nor the unlimited gold of a millionaire could bring together
84

RINALDO AND ARMIDA
In the collection1 of the Duke of Newcastle at Clumber

RINALDO AND ARMIDA
so many works of art of the finest quality as those collected by
Charles I., and dispersed with such unwise rapidity by the Parlia
ment after the king's death.
Charles I. was not likely to be unacquainted with the growing
reputation of Van Dyck. If Van Dyck came to England in 1626
or 1627, as mentioned in a previous chapter, he could hardly have
escaped the notice of the king, although his reputation had yet to
be made. There is no indication, however, that Charles took
any interest in the work of Van Dyck before March 23, 1629-30,
when an order, preserved in the Pell Records, was issued to pay
to Endymion Porter, " one of the Grooms of his Majesties Bed
chamber the some of 78^ for one picture of the storie of Reynaldo
& Armida bought by him of Monsieur Vandick of Antwerpe
and deliverd to his Majtie without accompt as per letter of privy
seal 20 March, 1629."
The story of ' Rinaldo and Armida ' was a favourite subject
with Van Dyck. Endymion Porter, one of the most active agents
of the king, and later to be one of Van Dyck's best friends in
England, being in Antwerp, ordered a painting of ' Rinaldo and
Armida ' from Van Dyck. A letter from Van Dyck to Porter,
written in Spanish, the language of the Regent's court, is pre
served among Endymion Porter's papers in the Record Office.
Writing from Antwerp on December 5, 1629, Van Dyck informs
Porter that the picture had been delivered into the hands of his
agent, Mr. Pery, who had paid him ^72 sterling as agreed. It
is generally supposed that this picture is identical with the beautiful
painting of ' Rinaldo and Armida ' in the collection of the Duke
of Newcastle at Clumber, a painting replete with all the splendid
manner of Titian, added to the brilliant colour of Paolo Veronese.
If the composition be somewhat artificial and less spontaneous
than those of the great Venetians, it is still an advance on the
rendering of the same subject in the Louvre. A painter must
surely rejoice in the flesh-painting of the siren who fills the lower
right-hand corner of the picture. x\n impish Cupid in the back
ground is from the same model as that in the memorial ' Cruci
fixion' at Antwerp and the large ' Nood Gods' at Berlin.
It is still uncertain what was the actual motive which caused
Charles I. to invite Van Dyck to his court. The Earl of
Arundel, restored to favour since the death of Buckingham, and
his Countess had renewed their attempts to bring the painter to
85

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
England. Nicholas Lanier, the king's confidential agent for the
purchase of pictures, had shown to the king his own portrait, which
Van Dyck had painted in Genoa. Another story, told by the
print-dealer Edward Cooper to Vertue, and noted by the latter,
was that " Sir Anthony Vandyke Painter was recommended to
King Charles Ist by Mr Le Blon Envoy from the Queen of
Sweden whose picture was painted by Vandyke & a print is
engraved from it by Mattham, the print is not scarce." This
was Michel Le Blon, an engraver and political agent, whose
portrait by Van Dyck is now at Amsterdam.
In spite of his great reputation and the commissions which
poured in upon him, the position of Van Dyck at Antwerp was
not satisfactory to a painter who held himself in such esteem.
Rubens was not only back at work in Antwerp, but he was
engaged in his atelier on a series of great paintings, which showed
that his genius was greater than before, even if the actual work
was left more and more to be carried out by his assistants. Do
what he might, Van Dyck could never hope to rank higher than
Rubens. He was therefore ready to take a place, if properly
secured for him, at any court, whether that of the Prince of Orange
or that of the King of England. It may have been the prospect
of obtaining such a post in London which prevented him from
entering altogether the service of the Prince of Orange.
The Queen- Mother of France, Marie de' Medicis, may
possibly have recommended Van .Dyck to her daughter, Queen
Henrietta Maria, in England. At all events in March, 163 1-2,
Van Dyck was at Brussels and preparing to start for England,
taking with him as specimens of his work portraits of Marie
de' Medicis and the Infanta Isabella. The credit for this decision
was claimed by Sir Balthasar Gerbier, one of those curious artist-
diplomats, who were brought into existence by the secret intrigues
in which the policy of Buckingham had entangled Europe.
Gerbier had been the tool of Buckingham, and after his patron's
murder was open to the highest bidder, and ready to dabble in
miniature-painting, picture-dealing, speculation, politics, or what
ever came to hand. He was now in the employ of the Lord
Treasurer, Richard Weston, afterwards Earl of Portland, for
whom he purchased at Brussels, in December, 163 1, a painting
of ' The Virgin and Child with St. Catherine,' by Van Dyck.
Gerbier, who met the painter at Brussels, says that Van Dyck
86

SIR BALTHASAR GERBIER
thanked him for having sent the picture to Weston, and confided
to him his wish to go to England. He managed, however, to fall
out with the painter, who repudiated the picture purchased by
Gerbier as his work, and refused to go to England. During this
time Van Dyck was corresponding with Geldorp, his friend in
London, and informed him that the picture sent to Weston was
only a copy. Van Dyck further ordered Gerbier to cancel his
agreement with the Queen- Mother of France. Gerbier then
obtained a certificate from a scrivener at Brussels attesting the
genuineness of the picture sent to the Lord Treasurer. He then
wrote to the king on March 13, 1632, from Brussels, saying that
Van Dyck was there and was determined to go over to England,
though, thanks to that tale-teller Geldorp, Van Dyck was on very
bad terms with Gerbier himself.
The incident of this quarrel would seem to show Van Dyck
in a poor light, were it not that the whole career of Sir Balthasar
Gerbier leads one to place little trust in any statement made by him.
Gerbier no doubt tried to win the confidence of Van Dyck, as he
had won that of Rubens. His portrait appears in the ' Icono
graphie.' At Windsor Castle there is a large painting representing
the ' Family of Sir Balthasar Gerbier,' which has been ascribed
from time to time to Rubens or Van Dyck, or even to the two
conjointly. A close examination shows that the central group is
identical with a family group, painted by Rubens, now in the
collection of Mrs. Culling H anbury at Bedwell in Hertfordshire,
and that the picture has been concocted from that group. A
similar group to that by Rubens, representing the ' Van Vilsteren
Family,' purchased recently for the Royal Gallery at Brussels as
the work of Van Dyck, must, for a similar reason, be regarded
with some suspicion.
Van Dyck carried out his resolution and arrived in England
very shortly afterwards; for on May 21, 1632, a Privy Seal Warrant
was issued at Westminster to Edward Norgate, a heraldic artist and
writer in the service of the Earl of Arundel, and afterwards Clerk
of the Signet to the Crown, for fifteen shillings by the day " for the
dyett and lodging of Signior Anthonio Van Dike and his servants ;
the same to begin from the first day of Aprill last past to continue
during the said Vandikes residence there." It has been said that
Van Dyck passed through Holland on his way to England; but,
if so, his stay could only have lasted a few days. He may have
87

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
crossed from Rotterdam, and have been there the guest of his
friends Hendrik and Helena du Bois.
The king took a personal interest in the arrival of Van Dyck
and in finding him a lodging. In addition to the instructions to
Norgate, the king instructed his Secretary of State, Sir Francis
Windebank, to " speak with Inigo Jones concerning a house for
Vandyck." This may perhaps refer to the plans for the royal
palace at Whitehall, on which the great architect was at that time
engaged. A residence was provided for Van Dyck in the Black-
friars, conveniently near the river and without the liberties of the
City of London, so that he would not come under the jurisdic
tion of the Painter- Stainers' Company. A summer residence was
provided for him in the royal palace at Eltham in Kent, a few
miles out of London. Van Dyck had now reached the summit of
his career. He was the accredited court-painter of a king who
was the greatest connoisseur of art in Europe. The road was now
open for a life of honour, splendour, and luxury. All possible
rivals faded from his path. Daniel Mytens obtained the king's
leave to return to Utrecht, and Cornelius Jansen left London and
settled in Kent near Canterbury. Van Dyck was at once em
ployed by Charles and Henrietta Maria, and on July 5, 1632, he
received the honour of knighthood at St. James's Palace, being
described as " Sir Anthony Vandike, principalle Paynter in
ordinary to their Majesties." On April 20, 1633, a warrant was
issued by the Lord Chamberlain "for a Chain and a Medal of
One Hundred and Ten Pounds value to be presented unto Sir
Anthony Vandyck." The king gave the painter a pension of ^"200
per annum to be paid quarterly, and in a warrant for the payment
of this annuity in 1633 directions are given to pay it, "any
restraint formerly made by our late dear Father, or by us, for
payment or allowance of Pensions or Annuities or any Declara
tion, Signification, Matter or Thing to the contrary in any wise
notwithstanding." These words clearly denote that Van Dyck's
breach of his agreement with James I. in 1620 had not been over
looked at the English court, and they also suggest a reason for
Van Dyck's want of success at the time of his supposed visit to
England in 1626 or 1627.
One of the first men of mark at the court of Charles I., with
whom Van Dyck was to be on terms of personal friendship, was
the famous Sir Kenelm Digby. This strange genius, half paladin
88

SIR KENELM DIGBY
and half charlatan, had returned from some years' service in Italy
and Spain, and had settled down with his beautiful wife, Venetia
Stanley. Van Dyck painted Digby several times. One portrait
in armour is in the National Portrait Gallery ; another seated at a
table, on which is a broken armillary sphere, is known by many
repetitions, the best version being that at Windsor Castle. Van
Dyck painted a group of Digby with his wife and children, one
version of which is in the collection of the Duke of Portland at
Welbeck Abbey. Scandal, however, had not spared the character
of the fair Venetia, and, it would seem, not without some reasonable
cause. Digby, at all events, resented any imputation upon his wife's
honour, and, to vindicate it, instructed Van Dyck to paint a portrait
of his wife as ' Prudence.' In this portrait the fair Venetia is
seated, among emblems of her innocence, in a beautiful landscape,
while Cupids hold a garland of bay-leaves above her head ; her
left hand caresses a dove, the symbol of purity; her right holds a
snake, the symbol of envy, powerless to do her harm. Behind her
on the ground the Satyr of Evil and Malice is bound a captive,
while other Cupids disport themselves with emblems in the way so
characteristic of Van Dyck. The painting is of great beauty, the
colours rich and Titianesque, the landscape and other accessories
very like the ' Rinaldo and Armida' of the Duke of Newcastle.
Venetia Digby died on May i, 1633. Her broken-hearted
husband is said to have called in Van Dyck to paint her portrait
as she lay upon her death-bed. Bellori, the historian, who is one
of the chief authorities for the life of Van Dyck, says that he him
self met Sir Kenelm Digby at Rome during the Pontificate of
Urban VIII., and that Digby, who was then English Resident
at Rome, told him various anecdotes of Van Dyck after the
arrival of the painter in London. Bellori also states that Van
Dyck painted for Sir Kenelm Digby alone, ' Christ taken down
from the Cross with Joseph, Nicodemus, the Magdalene, and the
Virgin,' ' St. John the Baptist in the Desert,' ' The Magdalene in
Ecstasy,' ' Judith and Holofernes,' a ' Crocefisso Spirante,' which
Digby gave to Princesse de Guem£n£e in Paris, and a ' Donna
bruna ' dressed as Paris.
Commissions for the king and queen kept the painter in active
employment, and he was constantly in attendance on them if they
were not paying a visit to his studio themselves. So great was
the impression made by the handsome and courtly painter upon
89 N

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
the queen, that she expressed a wish, no doubt at Van Dyck's
suggestion, to have his brother Theodorus, the priest, as one of
her chaplains. On August 26, 1633, Henrietta Maria wrote a
letter herself to the Abbe* of the Church of Parsen at Antwerp,
who was Vicar of the Premonstratensian Order in the lands of
Brabant and Friesland. The queen says in this letter that the
good report given by the AbbC of Theodorus Waltman de Van
Dyck, canon of the Church of S. Michel in Antwerp, and the
good and pleasant services rendered to her every day by the
Chevalier Anthony Van Dyck, his brother, had inspired her with
the wish to have the said Theodorus as one of her chaplains. The
queen begs the Abbe* to obtain leave from the Superior of the
Order for Theodorus Van Dyck to come to England for this
purpose, and offers as inducements the credit and honour which
would thus accrue to the Order, the pleasure that Theodorus would
take in the society of his brother, and the security he would have,
under the queen's protection, for the profession and the practice of
his faith. There is no evidence to show that Theodorus Van Dyck ever
came to England. Either the Superior of the Order withheld his
consent, or, as is more likely, the priest himself was not tempted
by the magnificence of the offer. In the following March the two
brothers were associated together at Antwerp, the painter having
returned home to settle some matters concerning his estate. On
March 28 Van Dyck purchased a property in the Seigneurie of
Steen, that very Seigneurie which was purchased by Rubens in
May, 1635. On April 14 following Van Dyck gave a power of
attorney to his sister Susanna, to administer all his property at
Antwerp during his absence abroad. It is evident that Van
Dyck contemplated an eventual return to his native city, since he
took out no letters of denization in England ; and in a return of
aliens in London made in this very year, 1634, there occurs an
entry: "Dutch. Sir Anthony Vandike. Limner. 2 years. 6 ser
vants." Van Dyck, however, was not destined to return at once
to his house in Blackfriars, and to his duties as court-painter to
Charles and Henrietta Maria. His fame brought him an invitation
to the court at Brussels, an invitation which he evidently thought
it would be injudicious to decline.
There was excitement in the court of the Hapsburgs at
Brussels. Isabella Clara Eugenia, the wise old Regent and Van
90

THOMAS, PRINCE DE SAVOIE-CARIGNAN
In the Royal Gallery, Turin

THOMAS DE SAVOIE-CARIGNAN
Dyck's patroness, closed her useful life on December i, 1633. As
she left no heirs, it devolved once more upon the King of Spain,
Philip IV., to appoint a new Regent for the Netherlands. He
selected his own brother, Ferdinand, known as the Cardinal
Infant, who, as a prince of the royal house of Spain, had, fol
lowing a custom of the Holy Roman Empire, been elevated to
the rank of Cardinal. The entry of the new Regent was eagerly
expected at Brussels, and there was a goodly assembly of nobles
and princes ready to receive him on his arrival.
After the death of Isabella, and pending the arrival of Fer
dinand, the governorship of the Netherlands devolved upon the
splendid Thomas de Savoie-Carignan, fifth son of Charles Em
manuel of Savoy, and nephew to the late Regent. He had just
succeeded Moncada as commander-in-chief of the Spanish forces
in the Netherlands. Van Dyck painted the handsome warrior
in one of his greatest pictures, the equestrian portrait now in the
Royal Gallery at Turin, in which the prince sits fully clad in
armour, on a white horse, which rears in an action that suggests
similar portraits by Velazquez at Madrid. Van Dyck also painted
the same prince at half length in armour, and full face, in a fine
portrait now in the Royal Gallery at Berlin, an inferior version of
which is at Windsor Castle. It is noteworthy that by painting
this prince Van Dyck achieved the feat of portraying four successive
commanders-in-chief in the Netherlands — Spinola, the Comte de
Berg, Moncada, and Thomas de Savoie-Carignan.
At Brussels there was residing a branch of the royal house
of France, consisting of Charles, Due de Lorraine, and his sisters
Henriette and Marguerite. Marguerite de Lorraine had married
in 1632 Gaston, Due d'Orleans, younger son of Henri IV. and
Marie de' Medicis, and brother to Henrietta Maria, Queen of
England. Gaston, who was now twenty-six, had already been
painted by Van Dyck at Antwerp at the time of his mother's visit
in 1 63 1. Van Dyck now again painted the young prince with his
dark passionate face and black hair in a fine full-length portrait,
now in the collection of the Earl of Radnor at Longford Castle.
Marguerite he also depicted at full length in the portrait now in
the Uffizii Gallery at Florence, a small study for which is at
Hampton Court. Henriette de Lorraine, the elder sister, was the
widow of Louis de Guise, Prince de Phalsbourg. Less attractive
than her sister, she subsequently married three more husbands, and
9i

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
appears, attended by a negro page, in a full-length portrait formerly
at Hamilton Palace and now in the collection of Lord Iveagh in
London. It is uncertain whether Van Dyck painted the Due de Lorraine,
but he certainly immortalised a lady who was to be associated with
the Duke soon after in a romantic union. Beatrice de Cusance,
daughter of Claude Francois de Beauvoir, was one of the most
fascinating ladies at the court of Brussels. I n 1 63 5 she was married
to Eugene Leopold d'Oiselet, Comte and Prince de Cante Croix,
who left her a widow in 1637. Meanwhile she had captivated
the heart of the Due de Lorraine, who repudiated his first wife
in order to marry the fair widow. The affair was the subject of
much gossip and scandal at the European courts, but the Church
refused to recognize the marriage. Beatrice found this out to her
cost when, a few years later, another charmer crossed the path of
the susceptible Due de Lorraine, and she found herself deserted.
Few portraits among Van Dyck's masterpieces are so alluring as
that of Beatrice de Cusance, as she trips up the steps of the palace,
with a little spaniel barking at her feet, casting as she goes a look
from her eyes enough to fascinate any beholder, whether royal
duke or otherwise. This portrait is at Windsor Castle, a repeti
tion being at Warwick Castle.
At Brussels in this year Van Dyck painted the stalwart
warrior John, Count of Nassau-Siegen, with his wife, Ernestine
de Ligne, and their sons and daughters. The immense painting
which contains these portraits is in the collection of Earl Cowper
at Panshanger, having been brought from Holland in 1741. The
Count of Nassau-Siegen appears again in armour at full length
in a noble portrait now in the Liechtenstein Gallery at Vienna.
Here, too, he may have painted the two young Bavarian princes,
Charles Louis, the Elector- Palatine, and Rupert, afterwards so
famous in the Civil Wars in England. These two princes had
been brought up with their exiled mother Elizabeth, Queen of
Bohemia, at the Hague, where Van Dyck had already painted
them as boys in the two exquisite full-length portraits in the
Imperial Gallery at Vienna. He now paints them as young men
together in the same portrait, both in armour, with long flowing
hair, the elder brother, Charles Louis, wearing the chain and
'George ' of the Order of the Garter, which had been conferred on
him by Charles I. in 1633. This painting is now in the Louvre.
92

BEATRICE DE CUSANCE, PRINCESSE DE CANTE-CROIX
In the Royal Collection, Windsor Castle

PRINCE CHARLES LOUIS AND PRINCE RUPERT OF BAVARIA
In the Louvre, Paris

DUC D'ARENBERG
Van Dyck painted the two brothers again, during their visit to
the English court in 1636, in the two superb full-length portraits
belonging to the Earl of Craven at Combe Abbey.
Proudest among the nobles of Brabant was Albert, Due
d'Arenberg, and Prince de Barbancon. One of the chief military
commanders of his day, he had been rewarded with the Order of
the Golden Fleece and other conspicuous honours at the court of
the Regent Isabella. Van Dyck had already painted him, standing
in black at full length, with the chamberlain's key in his belt, in
a fine Velazquez-like portrait in the collection of Earl Spencer
at Althorp. He now painted him again in a great equestrian
portrait, rivalling that of Thomas de Savoie-Carignan, which is
in the collection of the Earl of Leicester at Holkham ; a bust
portrait, evidently a study for the equestrian figure, is in the
Palais d'Arenberg at Brussels, and a similar painting is also in
the collection of Earl Spencer at Althorp. The large equestrian
portrait seems to have been painted at the time of, or soon after,
the unexpected fall and disgrace of the Due d'Arenberg after
the death of the Regent Isabella. His wife, Marie, daughter of
Everard de Brabancon, Vicomte de Dave, was painted by Van
Dyck in a portrait which still remains in the Royal Palace at
Brussels. This same Duchesse d'Arenberg is said to have been the
model for Van Dyck in a painting, remarkable for the brilliancy
of its colour, representing the ' Virgin and Child with a Priest in
Adoration.' In this composition, which now belongs to Miss
Alice de Rothschild, the whole tone is entirely different from
any previous renderings of the same subject by Van Dyck. The
Virgin is certainly mundane, self-conscious, and uninspired; and
the same may be said of the Child, though its action is graceful and
pleasing. The ecclesiastic, who is in the act of adoration, is
Cesare Alessandro Scaglia, Abbe de Stapherde, a member of a
noble Genoese family, who was one of the most slippery among
the political agents in the tortuous intrigues of the Spanish court.
Scaglia, however, has been immortalized by Van Dyck in one of
his finest portraits, the full-length portrait now in the collection of
Captain Holford at Dorchester House. This portrait was painted
for the Church of the Recollets at Antwerp, for which same church
Scaglia commissioned Van Dyck at this date to produce one of his
most successful religious paintings, the beautiful small version of
93

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
' Christ on the Knees of his Mother,' or ' Nood Gods,' which is
now in the Museum at Antwerp. In this painting Van Dyck's
success is assured, not only in pathos and intensity of expression,
but also in depth and arrangement of colour. After the death of
the Abbe Scaglia in 1 641, the ministers of the Order of Recollets
sold his portrait, hardly a very gracious act on their part, and
substituted a good but uninspired copy, which now hangs in the
Museum at Antwerp.
Among other portraits painted by Van Dyck at Brussels in
1634 was the full-length portrait of Marie Claire, Duchesse de
Croy, at Farnley Hall in Yorkshire, and that of an unknown lady
(perhaps the Duchesse de Croy again), at three-quarter length,
in the Brera Gallery at Milan. Van Dyck also painted Marie
Marguerite de Barlemont, Comtesse d' Egmont, and other ladies
of the court. The most remarkable, however, of his works at
Brussels was the great painting, executed by him for the Munici
pality of Brussels in the Town Hall of that city. This composition
contained the life-size portraits of no less than twenty-three magis
trates of the city seated in council. A French writer (quoted by
M. Hymans) says that, being in Brussels in 1695, he was taken
to see this vast painting, and describes the impression made on
him by it. "L'assiette," he writes, " de ces vingt-trois figures
grandes comme le naturel est si ingenieuse et si bien disposee,
qu'il vous semble d'abord voir cet illustre senat discourir et deliberer
des choses de la Republique. Je ne pus la considerer sans etre
touche de quelque respect ; d'autant que la grandeur de cet
ouvrage, l'edat qui brille dans les yeux de ces graves senateurs, et
le teint frais et vif de leurs visages m'inspirerent ce sentiment."
Unfortunately during that very year, 1695, this great painting
perished in a conflagration caused by the bombardment of Brussels
by the French under Marechal de Villeroy.
The Cardinal Infant, Don Fernando, at last arrived at Brussels,
and on November 4 he solemnly took over the governorship of
the Netherlands. Van Dyck painted his portrait more than once.
He appears in a rich scarlet habit in a three-quarter length portrait
in the Prado Gallery at Madrid ; in armour, at three-quarter length,
in the Liechtenstein Gallery at Vienna ; and on horseback in the
collection of Mr. Mainwaring at Oteley Park, Shropshire. Van
Dyck had, on October 18 of the same year, received from the
Guild of St. Luke of Antwerp the highest honour which they
94

CESARE ALESSANDRO SCAGLIA
In the collection of Captain Holford at Dorchester House, London

THE CARDINAL INFANT
could pay him : he was elected Dean of the Guild honoris causd
(Eere-Deken), and his name was inscribed in capital letters in the
list of members, an honour which had been conferred only on
Rubens, and which has not been shared by any other member of
the Guild up to the present day. When the city of Antwerp began
to prepare for the solemn entry of the Governor into their city
with a series of pageants and triumphal arches, they intrusted the
designs to Rubens and his assistants. As they required a portrait
of Don Fernando himself, the secretary of the Antwerp Town

\7lu- (fnrf '(f,nM
^ An tlie ^IliOcum ,'f ' 'Juir. ir/.).. In/irrrp
Council, Philips van Valckenisse, wrote to the Municipality of
Brussels on December 16, 1634, and asked them to send to
Antwerp a copy of the portrait of the Prince-Cardinal which had
lately been painted at Brussels by Van Dyck From this letter
it appears that Van Dyck was living in Brussels at a house called
the ' Paradijs,' just behind the Town Hall Van Dyck readily
acceded to this request ; but when they asked for a copy of his
portrait of the late Regent Isabella, he asked so high a price hat
the Antwerp Council declined to pay, and contented themselves
with a copy from a portrait of Isabella at Milan.
95

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
Van Dyck Was back at Antwerp early in 1635, for he com
pleted there a large painting of ' The Adoration of the Shepherds '
('Nuit de Noel' or 'Hersnacht'), for the Church of Notre
Dame at Termonde, for which he was paid 500 florins exclusive
of payments for canvas. There is some uncertainty about this paint
ing, for, according to a letter from Van Dyck dated November 21,
1 63 1, the picture seems to have been commissioned by Cornelis
Gheerolfs, echevin of Termonde, at that date. Perhaps Van
Dyck in 1635 was carrying out a commission which he had been
unable to fulfil before his removal to England.
Early in 1635 Van Dyck returned to England to resume his
duties^as painter to the court of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria.

96

CHAPTER X
The Portraits of Charles I., Henrietta Maria, and the Royal Family ; Other Paintings by
Van Dyck for Charles I.
IN the history of England, even it may be said in the history of
Europe, the romantic figures of Charles I. and his queen,
Henrietta Maria of France, appear in the lineaments traced by
Van Dyck. A peculiar sympathy seems to have linked together
the king and the painter, and it is difficult to separate them in the
mind. One does not seem to know Charles in his early portraits
as Duke of York and Prince of Wales, or even in the very ex
cellent portraits of the king which Mytens painted. In the por
traits by Mytens Charles appears, no doubt, as he was seen, his
short stature and other minor defects being in no way disguised.
His air is careless and debonnair, and it is possible to trace in it
something of the clumsiness and the Scottish bonhomie of his father,
James I. But with the arrival of Van Dyck the king appears,
as it were, transformed. Instead of the rather gawky youth de
picted by Mytens, there appears a hero of romance with an in
definable look of destiny and sadness in his eyes. To the pride
and dignity of royalty Charles adds the fateful melancholy of a Lord
Byron. Through the succession of Van Dyck's portraits the noble
melancholy of the king seems to increase in intensity. It is the
Charles I. of Van Dyck whom the historian pictures to himself,
defying the House of Commons, receiving the news of Naseby or
Edgehill,the captive of Hampton Court orCarisbrooke, the prisoner
at bar in Westminster Hall, or the royal martyr, pacing with un
diminished dignity and pride through the snowy morning to the
last scene on the scaffold of Whitehall. For all these scenes Van
Dyck prepares the illustration.
To Queen Henrietta Maria Van Dyck rendered no less ser
vice. The daughter of Henri IV. and Marie de' Medicis was a
little brunette, whose personal attractions were limited to a pair of
fine eyes and a pretty mignonne figure. In character she inherited
both the courage of her father and the indomitable tenacity of her
97 o

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
mother. For the presentment of Henrietta Maria in history Van
Dyck is again responsible. In the dry and uncompromising por
traits of Miereveldt and his school she would have been but one in
a long series of uninteresting royalties. Had she instead of her
sister been Queen of Spain, she would have been one of the charm
ing dolls, in unspeakable dresses, on which Velazquez expended his
inimitable skill as a portrait-painter. Van Dyck transformed Hen
rietta Maria into a heroine of romance, and if, as a courtier who
desired to flatter, and as a painter who could not but embellish every
thing which he touched, he added some charms which perhaps were
not so apparent in real life, he succeeded in handing down Henrietta
Maria as a figure for the admiration and delight of posterity.
The king and queen were constant visitors to Van Dyck's
studio at Blackfriars. They would order the royal barge on the
Thames at Westminster, the usual way of progression from West
minster to London at that date, and land at the painter's house.
In 1635 a payment occurs in the Works accounts of the Crown
(preserved in the Audit Office Records at the Record Office) which
is of great interest as showing that Van Dyck's house at Blackfriars
was near enough to the river to have a special landing-stage made
for the royal party.
"Allowed the said Accomptante for Money by him yssued
and paid for Workes and Repairacons donne and performed
within the tyme of this Accompte at the Blackfryers in
making a new Cawsey Way and a new paire of Staires for
the King's Majesty to land to goe to Sr Anthoney Van-
dike's house there to see his Paintings in the monethes of
June and July 1635 ... . xxii."
Various entries occur in the accounts of the royal household
for payments to Van Dyck, although it is much to be regretted
that the treasury clerks of those days were not more explicit in their
details of the paintings charged for by the painter. Still it is
interesting to record them, remembering that the sums paid should
be multiplied by about eight or ten times the amount, in order to
bring them up to the value of money at the present day.
Privy Seal Warrants for Payments to Van Dyck :
"Aug. 8, viii. Car. I. Whereas Sr Anthony Vandike hath by
Or Comaund made and psented us wth divers pictures v3.
98

CHARLES I.
In the National Gallery, London

ROYAL COMMISSIONS

a piece

280//."

Our owne royall portrature
Monsieur the french Kings brother [ 25/z a piece
the Arch Dutchesse at length
Our royall consort
Prince of Orange 1 2q/-
prmcesse 01 Orange
their sonne at half length
One greate peece of Or royal self, consort and
children, 100//
Emperor Vitellius, 20/z
Mending picture of Emperor Gal bus, $li

It is easy to identify most of these paintings. ' Monsieur the
french Kings brother ' is Gaston, Due d'Orleans, painted by Van
Dyck at Antwerp in 1631, and 'the Arch Dutchesse at length'
is the Regent Isabella, these being two of the portraits brought
over by Van Dyck as specimens of his work, together, it may be
supposed, with the portraits of the Prince and Princess of Orange
and their boy William. The Roman Emperors refer to the famous
series of ' The Twelve Emperors ' by Titian in the Royal Collec
tion, brought from Mantua, for which Van Dyck supplied a copy
of the ' Vitellius,' as the original was hopelessly damaged, and also
repaired the ' Galba.'
The ' greate peece ' referred to is without doubt the picture of
Charles I. and Henrietta Maria with their two eldest children, now
at Windsor Castle. The king and the queen are seated side by
side, the little Prince Charles standing by his father's side, while
the Princess Mary is held in her mother's arms. The king is in
black and silver, the queen in amber silk, and the little prince in
dark green velvet, forming a pleasing medley of colours. Two
little dogs disport themselves at the queen's skirts. A view of
Westminster is seen in the background. This great picture hung
in the 'Long Gallery towards the Orchard' at Whitehall. It
was sold in 1651 to Emmanuel de Critz, the king's serjeant-painter,
and others, in a dividend for ^150. At the Restoration it was
restored to the Crown and hung in the ' Matted Gallery ' at
Whitehall, where Samuel Pepys saw it in 1667. It appears in
the catalogue of James II.'s collection, and has remained ever
since the property of the Crown. A replica, perhaps a studio-
99

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
repetition, was in the collection of the Due d'Orleans, and is now
in that of the Duke of Richmond at Goodwood. Other versions
are known, probably copies only, the best being that belonging
to the Duke of Devonshire, formerly at Chiswick and now at
Chatsworth. Continuing the record of payments made to Van Dyck, it is
found that on 4 Feb. viii. Car. I. (1632-3), ^200 was paid to
Van Dyck by Philip Burlamacchi. Exchequer Payments were
made as follows :
"7 May ix. Car. I. (1633) 444^ for Nine pictures of Or Royall
self and most dearest Consort the Queene lately made by
him.
21 Oct. ix. Car. I. (1633) 40^ for Picture of Or dearest
Consort the Queene by him made & by Or command'
deliverd unto Or right trustie and right welbeloved Cosin
& Counsellor the Lord Viscount Wentworth Ld Deputy
of Or Realme of Ireland.
23 Feb. xii. Car. I. (1636-7) 1200^" for Certaine Pictures by
him deliv'ed to our use.
14 Dec. xiv. Car. I. (1638) 603^ for divers Pictures by him
made and sould to us, 1000^ arrears of pension.
25 Feb. xiv. Car. I. (1638-9) 305^ for certaine Pictures by
him provided and deliv'ed for our use."
The most important of these records is that in which it is
evident that the king took the painter's account, and revised the
prices with his own hand. This memorandum is dated 1638-9, as
follows : " Memoire pour Sa Magtie le Roy.
Pour mollures du veu' conte 2j£
Une teste d'un valiant poete ao jQ 12
fLe Prince Henri 50^
Le Roi alia ciasse aoo£ 100
Le Roi vestu de noir au Prince Palatin avecq
sa mollure 34^ 30
Le Prince Carles avecq le ducq de J arc
Princess Maria Prse Elizabeth Pr Anna 2qq£ 100
Le Roi vestu de noir au Monsr Morre avecq
sa mollure 34^ 26
100

STUDY FOR THE PORTRAIT OF CHARLES I. IN THE
NATIONAL GALLERY
From the original in the British Museum

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MEMORANDUM FOR THE KING

f Une Reyne en petite forme
fUne Reyne vestu' en blu'
fUne Reyne Mere
fUne Reyne vestu en blanc
La Reyne pour Monsr Barnino 1
La Reyne pour Monsr Barnino J
La Reyne pour la Reyne de Boheme
fLa Reyne en petite forme
La Reyne envoye a Mons Fielding
fLe Prince Carlos en armes pour Somerset
Le Roy alia Reyne de Boheme
Le Roy a armes donne au Baron Warto
La Reyne au di Baron
Le Roy la Reyne le Prince Carlos au L'ambasr
Hopton
fUne Reyne vestu en blu donne au Conte
d'Ollande
fDeux demis portraits della Reyne au
Conte
Une piece pour la maison a Green Witz
Le dessein du Roy et tous les Chevaliers.

veu

The totall of all such Pictures as his Matie is
to paye for in his accoumpt rated by the
King and what his Matie doth allowe of,
amounts unto five hundred twentie eight
pownde
The other pictures wch the King hathe marked
wth a cross before them the Queene is to
paye for them, and her Matie is to rate them
The Arrere of the Pention being five yeares
amownts unto one thousand pownds att
two hundred pownds p afium
More for the pictures w* Sr Arthur Hopton
had into Spaine

2o£30^ S°£
So£
*&£-
*o£- *o£
4o£
S*£r 6o£ 6o£ 100 £

52S£

15
1515
20
4040 75

1000^
0075^

The totall of all amowntss unto 1603^
The pictures for the Queene 200^
Five years Pension iooo^"
Endorsed Sir Anthony Vandike."

101

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
One of the earliest likenesses of the king and queen is the
charming double portrait, remarkable for its oblong shape, in
which Charles is in the act of receiving a branch of myrtle from
Henrietta Maria. The king is here attired in a gay suit of red,
embroidered with silver and slashed with white silk. The queen
is in white, with pink ribbons and bows. This picture, which
was painted in 1634, was at Denmark House in 1639, and is now
in the collection of the Duke of Grafton, an indifferent copy being
at Buckingham Palace.
The more famous portraits of Charles I. seem to have been
painted after Van Dyck's return from Brussels in 1635. Exception
may perhaps be made for the famous portrait of ' Charles I. on a
White Horse with M. St. Antoine,' the original of which is now
at Windsor Castle ; while a replica from the painter's own studio,
if not from his own hand, is at Hampton Court. The king sits
fully clad in armour on a white horse, resting his bdton of command
on the saddle-cloth. He rides slowly under a lofty arch, and on
the right, and the horse's left, walks the equerry or riding-master,
Monsieur de St. Antoine. It is a noble picture, and the royal
cavalier recalls at once the portraits of Anton Giulio Brignole-
Sala at Genoa and the Marques de Moncada in the Louvre.
Equestrian portraiture has probably never reached a higher level
than in these three portraits. The original painting hung in St.
James's Palace, where Monsieur de la Serre, the secretary and
chronicler to Marie de' Medicis, saw it at the time that the Queen-
Mother was residing there on a visit to her daughter. De la Serre
writes: "At one end of the three-sided gallery there is a portrait of
the king in armour and on horseback, by the hand of the Chevalier
Van Dheich, and, to tell the truth, his pencil in preserving the
majesty of the great monarch has by his industry so animated him,
that if the eyes alone are to be believed they could boldly assert
that he lived in this portrait, so striking is the appearance." Some
confusion has arisen owing to an absurd identification of the
standing figure carrying the helmet with the Due d'Espernon.
This error existed early in the eighteenth century, for Vertue in his
diaries notes that " the late Mons. de Mirepoix, being ambassador
from France, when at Kensington was shown that picture of
Charles I. on horseback, and immediately declared from his own
knowledge that it is not the Due d'Espernon." Vertue also
suggests that this name was given by the house-keeper at St. James's
102

EQUESTRIAN PORTRAITS OF CHARLES I.
Palace. The portrait is certainly that of Monsieur de St. Antoine,
who was sent over to London in 1603 with a present of six horses
trom Henri IV to James I., and afterwards became riding-master
and equerry to Henry, Prince of Wales, remaining, after that prince's
death, in the service of the King of England. The picture was
sold in 1650 by the Parliament to Sir Balthasar Gerbier for .£200.
and afterwards came into the possession or care of Remigius van
Leemput. ^ it seems, however, never to have been removed from
bt. J ames s Palace, as it was found there upon the Restoration in

uirws

(Iiar/eJ 1. A- cAiairieAta
¦ An f/ie crilechvti ct fhe A uke cp A?raAto7i..Al ..y.
1660, and recovered by the Crown. The version at Hampton
Court was valued in 1 649 at £4.0 only, which shows that even then
it was considered of inferior value. Copies of this picture, vary
ing in merit, are to be found at Warwick Castle, Apsley House,
Osterley Park, and elsewhere.
It is interesting to compare this portrait of Charles I. with the
other great equestrian portrait of the king, now in the National
Gallery, which was painted two or three years later. The horse
and rider are on this occasion seen in profile to the left, the king
being in full armour as before, and with the same action of the
103

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
hand and bdton. The horse, however, instead of being the beau
tiful white charger which was Van Dyck's favourite throughout
his life, is one of the large and heavy Flemish breed, of a light
creamy-brown in colour, with the small head which marks the
breed and makes the animal somewhat ungainly. The king rides
slowly through a rich landscape, resembling an English park, but
still very much like that in Titian's famous ' Charles V. ' at Madrid.
Behind the horse stands a young equerry, said to be Sir Thomas
Morton, holding a helmet, above whom, affixed to the trunk of a
tree, is a tablet inscribed carolvs rex magn.e britanle. A smaller
version of this portrait is in the royal collection at Buckingham
Palace, and appears in the catalogue of Charles I.'s collection.
It was catalogued by Vander Doort in 1639 as in the privy
gallery, and as " the model whereby the great picture was made."
The " great picture " does not appear to have remained in the king's
possession, but was probably presented by him either to his sister,
the Queen of Bohemia, or to his nephew, the Elector Palatine,
perhaps in return for a present of the horse on which he is repre
sented as riding. It was acquired by the great Duke of Marlborough
on one of his campaigns, according to one account purchased by
him after much negotiation at Munich, according to another taken
as the spoils of war from the Castle of Tervueren near Brussels.
Writing to his wife in November, 1 706, Marlborough says : " I
am so fond of some pictures I shall bring with me, that I could
wish you had a place for them till the gallery at Woodstock be
finished ; for it is certain there are not in England so fine pictures
as some of these, particularly King Charles on Horseback, done
by Vandyke. It was the Elector of Bavaria's and given to the
Emperor, and I hope it is by this time in Holland." At the
dispersal of the Blenheim Palace collection in 1886 the picture
was purchased for the National Gallery at a cost of ^"17,500.
It would seem, perhaps, an exaggeration to say that these two
equestrian portraits of Charles I., so highly extolled, could yet
have been surpassed by Van Dyck. This is the case, however, for
few critics of painting would hesitate to assign to the great portrait
of Charles I. by Van Dyck in the Salon Carre of the Louvre
a place among the greatest portraits, if not actually among the
greatest paintings, of any time or country. In this famous picture
the king is standing, having apparently dismounted from his horse
which paws the ground to the right, and is held by an equerry ;
104

Y

; ;

PORTRAITS OF CHARLES I.
another servant stands behind holding the king's cloak. Charles
himself is in a rich jacket of white satin and red breeches, with a
large black hat, and yellow leather boots, his hand on a staff. His
attitude is gay and ddbonnair, and no cares seem to be weighing
upon his mind. The landscape is similar to that in the Blenheim
portrait, but a river is seen in the distance. Sir Robert Strange,
the engraver, who made one of his most successful plates from
this picture, and studied it day by day, says : " There is magic
in the general effect of the picture, and the local colouring is
finely understood. If we consider the landscape, it is magnificent.
There is no empty space, no naked void left open to fatigue the
eye : the whole scene is clothed with richness and simplicity, afford
ing a delightful specimen of the luxurious fancy of the painter, who
has in this instance varied his pencil with innumerable beauties."
It is easy to identify this picture, which was painted in 1635, with
" Le Roi alia ciasse," mentioned in the king's memorandum, for
which the painter asked £200 and the king only paid £100. The
picture does not seem to have remained in the royal collection. It
went to France, perhaps as a present to the Queen- Mother, and
after passing through the collections of the Marquis de Lassay
and Crozat, Comte de Thiers, was purchased by Louis XV. for his
favourite, Madame Du Barry, whose fertile imagination concocted
not only a descent for herself, Jeanne Poisson by birth, from the
Earls of Barrymore, but even a connection with the royal house ol
Stuart. In 1636 Van Dyck painted Charles I. at full length in the
robes of the Order of the Garter. This portrait is now in St.
George's Hall, at Windsor Castle, and is, perhaps, the most
admirable, as a mere portrait, among Van Dyck's presentments of
the king. It was sold by the Parliament in 1649 f°r £6°> but
recovered at the Restoration in 1 660. Charles appears again in a
rich black dress with the great Star of the Garter on his sleeve, a
costume known as the " habit of St. George," in a fine half-length
portrait by Van Dyck. The original portrait in this dress is said
to have been destroyed in the fire at Whitehall in 1697, but to
have been copied by Sir Peter Lely. The copy by Lely has been
identified with the portrait now in the Royal Gallery at Dresden,
but the Dresden painting is so excellent, and is, moreover, a
pendant to one of the most admirable portraits of Queen Henrietta
Maria, that it is difficult to believe it to be other than an original
105 p

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
by Van Dyck. The portrait can further be identified in the
Memorandum of Charles I. as " Le Roi vestu de noir au Prince
Palatin avecq sa mollure," and again as " Le Roi vestu de noir au
Monsr Morre avecq sa mollure," whence it is clear that it was
repeated by Van Dyck more than once for the king. The ' Monsr
Morre,' is evidently William Murray, afterwards Earl of Dysart,
and in the collection of the Earl of Dysart at Ham House, there
is a portrait of Charles I. corresponding to this type. Another
is said to have been presented by the king to the Knight-Marshal,
Sir Edmund Verney, and is now at Clay don House. An interesting
portrait of the king in a plain black dress without any insignia is
in the Town Museum at Belluno, in North Italy, to which it was
bequeathed by a wealthy citizen who had purchased the picture in
Venice. Among the best known portraits of Charles I. in armour, are
'the half length with his arm upon a helmet, of which the best
version is that in the collection of the Duke of Norfolk at Arundel
Castle, and another in the collection of the Earl of Pembroke at
Wilton House, and a similar portrait with his hand upon a crystal
globe of which several versions exist. In the Memorandum already
referred to occur the entries, " Le Roy en Armes donne au Baron
Warto," and " La Reyne au dit Baron " ; these two full-length
portraits of the king and queen were presented by the king to
Philip, Lord Wharton, and after being purchased by Sir Robert
Walpole, were acquired, with other pictures, from the Houghton
Collection by the Empress Catherine of Russia for the Hermitage
Collection at St. Petersburg. Here the king was clearly justified
in reducing the price from £50 to £40 apiece, as they are but
indifferent performances, and clearly only to a small extent the
work of Van Dyck himself.
Special interest attaches to the triple portrait, showing the head
of Charles I., in three positions, painted about 1637 by Van
Dyck, and sent by the king to the famous sculptor, Bernini, at
Rome, in order that a bust might be made from it. There is a
well-attested tradition how that Bernini on receiving the picture
remarked, "Ecco, il volto funesto." Bernini made a marble bust
from the painting, which was finished and despatched for Rome
before October, 1638. The story goes, that when the bust by
Bernini was carried to the king's house at Chelsea, or, according
to another account, the Earl of Arundel's house at Greenwich, the
106

PORTRAITS OF HENRIETTA MARIA
king with his courtiers went to inspect it ; and that, as they were
viewing it, a hawk flew over their heads, with a partridge in his claws,
which he had wounded to death. Some of the partridge's blood
fell on the neck of the statue, "where it always remained without
being wiped off." This bust, unfortunately, perished at the fire at
Whitehall in 1697, but the picture remained in the possession of
Bernini and his descendants until 1803, when it was brought to
England, and after passing through the well-known collections of
Mr. Champernowne, Mr. Walsh Porter, and Mr. Wells of Redleaf,
was purchased from the latter for the royal collection by George IV.
Van Dyck is said to have painted no less than thirty-six por
traits of Charles I., and twenty-five of Queen Henrietta Maria.
As it is difficult to vary the portraits of a lady, no matter what
her rank may be, it is not surprising to find that those of Henrietta
Maria, painted by Van Dyck, can be classified into certain types,
variations being produced by different colours in the dress, and
slight alterations in the gesture of the hands.
On May 24, 1633, the Lord Chamberlain issued a warrant to
Van Dyck " to deliver his lordship the picture of the Queen he
lately made for the Lord Chamberlain." The Lord Chamberlain
at this date was Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and the por
trait is probably that still preserved at Wilton House. An entry
on the same date concerning a portrait by Mytens, shows that that
painter had not yet left the king's service.
The charming likeness of the queen in a white silk dress with
crimson bows and ribbons, shown in the double portrait, painted in
1634, m which she offers the king a branch of myrtle, was repeated
alone by Van Dyck several times. One of these, which was in
the king's own collection and hung in his bed-chamber at White
hall, is still at Windsor Castle ; another excellent version is in the
collection of the Marquess of Lansdowne at Lansdowne House.
A similar portrait, highly reputed, but of inferior merit, was at
Blenheim Palace, and is now in the collection of Lord Wantage ;
others are in the collections of the Earl of Jersey at Middleton
Park, the Earl of Carlisle at Castle Howard, and the Duke of
Buccleuch at Dalkeith Palace.
The portrait of the queen, painted by Van Dyck for the king
in 1633, and given by the King to Lord Wentworth, afterwards
the famous Earl of Strafford, can be identified with the famous
full-length portrait belonging to Earl Fitzwilliam at Wentworth
107

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
Woodhouse. In this painting the queen stands at full length in
blue silk, with a large black hat on her head, her right hand stroking
a monkey, which stands on the shoulder of the dwarf, Geoffrey
Hudson, who is standing by her side. A repetition of this portrait
is in the collection of the Earl of Northbrook.
A full-length portrait of the queen in white satin, with her hand
on a table, is in the collection of the Earl of Clarendon at The
Grove, near Watford. A similar portrait is at Windsor Castle, but
does not appear to be an original, or to have always formed part of
the royal collection. Others are in the collections of the Duke of
Grafton, in London, the Earl of Carlisle at Naworth Castle, Earl
Spencer at Althorp, and elsewhere, and the same portrait with
slightly varied action of the hands occurs over and over again in
English collections, being evidently the one most frequently repro
duced in Van Dyck's studio. The full-length portrait of the queen,
given by the king to Lord Wharton, is but a repetition of this
portrait, the satin dress being crimson instead of white.
One charming presentment of the queen is that in which she
holds a bunch of roses lightly in her hands, which rest just linked
across her dress. One of the finest of these is the portrait in a
blue silk dress, at half length, in the collection of the Earl of
Radnor at Longford Castle. Repetitions and copies abound in
which she is dressed in white or yellow satin, often with the flowers
omitted and the action of the hands left meaningless. In the ad
mirable portrait of the queen in the Royal Gallery at Dresden, the
flowers are held in the right hand only, the left falling lightly on
the white silk skirt ; this is one of the most satisfactory likenesses
of the queen which Van Dyck painted. Sometimes the queen is
seated, as in the portrait of her in the Royal Gallery at Munich,
and the roses lie loosely on her lap.
When the bust of Charles I. by Bernini was received, it was
so much admired, and excited such enthusiasm, that the queen
determined to have a similar bust of herself, and wrote a letter to
the sculptor stating her intention. This letter, which is published
by Baldinucci in his life of Bernini, is as follows :
" Sig. Cavalier Bernino,
" La stima, che il Re moi Sig. & io abbiamo fatta della
Statua, che voi gli avete fatta, camminando del pari colla sodis-
fazione, che noi ne avemo avuta, come d'una cosa, che merita
108

HENRIETTA MARIA WITH GEOFFREY HUDSON THE DWARF
In the collection of Earl Fitzwilliam, K. G. , at Wentworth Woodhouse

THE THREE CHILDREN OF CHARLES I.
l'approvazione di tutti quegli, che la guardano, mi obbliga adesso a
testificarvi, che per render la mia satisfazione intiera, desiderei
averne similmente una mia lavorata dalla vostra mano, e tirata
sopra li ritratti che vi porgera, il Sig. Lomes, al quale io mi rimetto,
per assi curarvi piu particolarmente della gratitudine, che io con-
servero del gusto, che aspetto di voi in questa occasione, pregando
Iddio, che vi tenga in sua santa custodia. Data in Voluthal li
26 Giugno 1639. " Enrietta Maria R."
Van Dyck was instructed to paint her portrait in three posi
tions, like that of the king, but on different canvases. These
portraits are entered on the Memorandum as "La Reyne pour
Monsr Barnino," the two portraits thus described being still at
Windsor Castle, one full face, the other a profile to the left.
Probably the troubles which ensued prevented the despatch of
the portraits to Rome as the queen intended. A third portrait, a
profile to the right, completing the set, is in the collection of the
Earl of Denbigh at Newnham Paddox, and is probably identical
with " La Reyne envoye a Mons Fielding " in the aforesaid Mem
orandum. No queen was more flattered and honoured by her court-
painter than Henrietta Maria was by Van Dyck. In 1641
Henrietta Maria arrived at the Hague and met Charles I.'s niece,
Sophia of Bavaria, afterwards Electress of Hanover. Sophia
writes that she was greatly disappointed. " Les beaux portraits
de Van Dyck m'avoient donne une si belle idee de toutes les dames
d' Angleterre, que j'estois surprise de voir la reine que je m'avois vue
si belle en peinture, estre petite femme, montee sur son siege, les
bras longs et sees, les epaules dissemblables et les dens comme des
defenses lui sortant de la bouche ; pourtant, apres que je l'eus con-
sideree, je lui trouvais les yeux tres beaux, le nez bien fait, le teint
admirable." Princess Sophia, however, hardly made allowance
for the difference in years between the early portraits of Van
Dyck and those of the woman who, after a period of care, ex
citement, and suffering, was just stepping across the threshold
which led to her years, of widowhood and melancholy exile.
One of the first tasks set to Van Dyck by the king and queen
after his return from the Netherlands in 1635, was to paint their
three children in a group. Charles, Prince of Wales, born on
109

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
May 29, 1630, was not yet five years old; Mary (afterwards
Princess of Orange), born on November 4, 1631, was a little over
three, and James, Duke of York, born on October 14, 1633, was
still an infant. Van Dyck was always at his best in depicting the
innocent grace of children. In the first painting of ' The Three
Children of Charles I.' he excelled himself, and produced perhaps
the most beautiful piece of child-portraiture in the world. The
composition is simple, not very ingenious or quite satisfactory, but
the pose of the children is so easy and unaffected, that there seems
to be no need for further elaboration. The little Prince Charles
stands on the left, attired in a long silk frock, embroidered with
silver braid and lace ; he has a broad collar deeply edged with cut-
work lace on his shoulders, and a lace cap on his head. His
right hand is on the head of a large collie dog. He occupies the
left side of the picture, on the other side stands his sister Mary,
in a silken dress cut open at the throat, a sprig of flowers in her
hair, her mother's pearls round her neck, like a young maiden
attired for her first ball, and on her left, a little in front, stands on
a step the wholly delightful figure of the baby James, also in a
long silk frock, with a lace cap on his head, and holding an apple
in his tiny hands. It is doubtful whether a baby could look so
wise or self-composed as the little James does here. Roses lie on
the carpet before them, and behind James is a landscape of trees
with budding roses. The whole painting is one shimmering and
radiant combination of red, blue, and silver, through which smile
the delicate features of the royal children. This picture is now in
the Royal Gallery at Turin, and, as it was never in the royal
collection, it was probably painted for the queen and presented by
her to her sister, Christina of Savoy.
Later in the same year Van Dyck painted the same three
children in a different group. In this the composition is more
elaborate and the pose less unaffected, and the children appear
more self-conscious, and aware of the situation. The Prince of
Wales stands on the left, leaning with crossed feet against the base
of a column. He has outgrown his long frocks and appears in a
silken tunic and breeches. He has also discarded his little cap,
and has more the air of a growing boy about him. His collar
is now of the richest lace throughout. He gives his left hand to
the infant James who stands in the middle, a cambric apron or
pinafore edged with lace over the front of his silk frock ; James
no

THE THREE CHILDREN OF CHARLES I.
In the Royal Gallery, Turin

THE CHILDREN OF CHARLES I.
turns towards his sister Mary, who stands composedly with one
hand resting on the other, wearing a cambric apron like her
brother, and a rich silk frock falling loosely from her shoulders.
On either side by the Prince of Wales, and by his sister, sits a
little spaniel dog. The picture is signed and dated by Van Dyck
in 1635. It has always been in the royal collection, and after being
sold by the Parliament was recovered at the Restoration, and is
now at Windsor Castle. A good replica or copy, purchased at
Paris in 1744, is in the Royal Gallery at Dresden. A small
version, signed by Van Dyck as above, with the mark of the royal
collection at the back, is in the collection of the Earl of Clarendon
at The Grove. Copies are to be found in the collection of the
Earl of Pembroke at Wilton and elsewhere.
Two years later the painter was similarly employed. The
royal family had, however, now been increased by the birth of
the Princess Elizabeth on December 28, 1635, and the Princess
Anne on March 17, 1636-7. In this picture Van Dyck shows
his weakness in the construction and arrangement of a group of
figures with no pictorial incidents, though the general effect is not
unpleasing. The Prince of Wales stands in the centre, attired in
red silk with rich lace collar as before ; he rests his left hand on
the head of an immense boarhound. On his right, and the left of
the picture, stand the Princess Mary in white silk, and the little
Prince James, still in a long red silk frock, with a cambric apron
and lace cap. On the right of the picture is seen the little
Princess Elizabeth in blue silk frock, apron and cap, holding with
her hands the infant Princess Anne, who lies crowing on a big
chair. At the feet of this chair is a spaniel. In the background
is a view of a park, and a high dresser on which are placed a silver
dish of fruit and a tall ewer. This is the least successful of the
three groups, as the colours, though brilliant and admirably ar
ranged, do not blend together in the same soft silvery radiance, as
in the exquisite painting at Turin. This picture can be identified
in the Memorandum for the king, quoted before as " Le Prince
Carles avecq le ducq de Jarc Princesse Maria Prse Elizabeth
Pr Anna," for which the painter asked £200 and the king paid
;£ioo. It was the property of the king and hung in the Breakfast
Chamber at Whitehall. It was sold by the Parliament for £120
and at the Restoration was found in the possession of Mr. Trion,
a merchant. 1 1 reappears in the catalogue of James II.'s collection,
in

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
but the version now at Windsor Castle, which has every appear
ance of being the original, must have been given by James II. to
his bastard daughter, who was the wife of the Earl of Portmore,
from whose collection it was that the picture at Windsor is said
to have been purchased by George III. A good atelier copy in the
Royal Gallery at Berlin appears to be identical with the " Grande
piece avec la representation des portraits de la maison d'Angleterre,"
which belonged to Amalia, Princess of Orange, and after her death
was valued at 1,200 florins, and adjudged to her grandson, Prince
Frederick of Brandenburg. Copies are frequent among the private
collections in England.
At this same date Van Dyck painted the Prince of Wales
alone, standing in armour, his left hand resting on a helmet with
enormous plumes and his right hand holding a pistol, perhaps in
mimicry of a similar portrait of his father. The emptiness of the
picture is filled up by the introduction of some branches of a large-
leaved plant, which produce a somewhat incongruous effect. The
picture can be identified in the aforesaid Memorandum as ' Le
Prince Carlos en Armes pour Somerset,' ^40, and it hung in
the queen's closet at Somerset House. It was sold like the others
by the Parliament in 1649. A version is now at Windsor Castle,
another is in the collection of the Duke of Portland at Welbeck
Abbey, and a third is in the Prado Gallery at Madrid. It is
uncertain which is the original picture, but that at Madrid belonged
to Philip IV., and, if not actually purchased from Charles I.'s
collection, as were other paintings in the same gallery, was probably
sent by the queen as a present to her sister Elizabeth, the Queen
of Spain, being perhaps one of the pictures which Sir Arthur
Hopton " had into Spaine." In the version at Welbeck Abbey
the features of Charles more closely resemble those of his portrait
in the group of ' The Five Children,' than the features do in the
version at Windsor Castle ; other details also, in the pistol, the
plumes of the helmet, the leaves of the plant, point to the superiority
of the Welbeck version over that at Windsor.
The paintings executed by Van Dyck for the king and queen
were by no means exclusively portraits. Charles I. had already
purchased Van Dyck's ' Rinaldo and Armida,' and must have com
missioned, among other paintings of the same nature, the charming
composition of ' Cupid and the Sleeping Nymph ' or ' Cupid and
Psyche,' which was in the royal collection at Wimbledon House.
112

THE FIVE CHILDREN OF CHARLES I.
-In the Royal Collection, Windsor Castle

OTHER PAINTINGS FOR CHARLES I.
This painting is remarkable for the same rich colours of pink and
blue, the same Titianesque landscape and sky which are found in
the ' Rinaldo and Armida,' and in the portrait of ' Venetia, Lady
Digby.' It figures in the sale-catalogue of Charles I.'s collection in
1649, and is still at Hampton Court. Bellori, who, as has been
stated before, was informed by Sir Kenelm Digby, states that Van
Dyck painted for Charles I. 'The Dance of the Muses with Apollo
on Parnassus,' ' Apollo flaying Marsyas,' * Bacchanals,' ' Venus and
Adonis,' and ' Nicholas Lanier as David playing the Harp before
Saul.' None of these paintings can be traced. Bellori also states
that he painted for the queen a Holy Family with dancing angels,
" Per la Regina fece la Madonna col Bambino e San Giuseppe
rivolti ad un ballo di Angeli in terra, mentre altri di loro suonano
in aria con vedute di paese vaghissima." This statement is
corroborated by an entry in Charles I.'s catalogue as among the
pictures in store at Whitehall, " Done by Vandike. Item. Another
our Lady with Christ, where many angels are a-dancing ; removed
by the King himself out of the little room by the long Gallery";
and by the fact that in the queen's apartments at Somerset House,
in 1649, there was a picture of ' Mary, Christ, and many angels
dancing,' which was sold by the Parliament for a small sum. This
would appear to be identical with the painting which was purchased
by Sir Robert Walpole ; at least Vertue considered it to be so
early in the eighteenth century, when he transcribed the catalogue
of Charles I.'s collection from the manuscript in the Ashmolean
Collection at Oxford. Walpole's picture was purchased with other
paintings from the Houghton Hall collection by the Empress
Catherine II. of Russia, and is now one of the chief ornaments
of the Hermitage Gallery at St. Petersburg. Bellori's statement,
therefore, is only partially correct, for in this version, if indeed it be
that painted for Henrietta Maria, the group of angels making music
above has been omitted by Van Dyck, and the space filled, rather
awkwardly, by a brace of partridges flying through the air, whence
the name of ' La Madonne aux Perdrix ' has been attached to the
picture. The model for the Virgin can be recognized as that which
was used by Van Dyck for his pictures of 'Venus,' ' Delilah,' and
others. There is a rich, voluptuous feeling about the picture at
St. Petersburg, which connects it with this period of Van Dyck's
career. The trees, plants, and birds, especially the great sunflower
which divides the picture into two halves, belong to this period.
113 Q

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
The whole composition shows the painter at his full individual
development, and not merely feeling his way in the steps of Titian
and Rubens, as in the earlier versions of the same picture. Ac
cording, however, to another account, the painting now at St.
Petersburg is identical with that painted for the Prince of Orange,
and was purchased by Sir Robert Walpole at the sale of the
collection at the royal Chateau of the Loo in 1 7 1 2.
Considering the disastrous loss to the cause of the arts in Eng
land, due to the dispersal of the king's collections of works of art,
ordered by the parliament, mainly, it must be admitted, in order to
liquidate the debts of the royal household, it is a matter for con
gratulation that those individuals who purchased, or received in
lieu of payment, the great portraits of the king and queen with
their children, painted by Van Dyck, should not only have seen to
their preservation, but should have been ready to produce and
deliver them up to the Crown upon the restoration of the Stuart
dynasty.

114

VENETIA, LADY DIGBY
In the Royal Collection, Windsor Castle

CHAPTER XI
Van Dyck at the English Court — Mytens and Cornelis Jansen — the Great Families of
Villiers, Stuart, Herbert, Percy, Wharton, Cary, Wriothesley — the Cavaliers and
their Portraits — Laud and Strafford
VAN DYCK found a world easy to conquer in London. At
Antwerp he had been not only overshadowed by the genius
and colossal reputation of Rubens, but also compelled to
compete on level ground with a number of other painters, some of
whom were but little inferior to himself in actual skill, and even in
the domain of portraiture produced works which are not unworthy
of being placed by the side of portraits by Van Dyck. Jordaens, for
instance, was a painter of the first class, and one who from his very
strongly accentuated Flemish character would be likely to appeal
more nearly to the average Flemish mind than the delicate and re
fined Van Dyck, with his somewhat exotic flavour of Italian poetry
and romance. In London there was a curious dearth of painters
who attained any distinction. The era of the severe and rigid panel
portraits of the Pourbus and Miereveldt school was coming to an
honourable close in the person of Daniel Mytens. Mytens, as has
been stated before, discerned at once the new era in the portraits
of Van Dyck. The only other painter of merit was Cornelis Jansen
van Ceulen, a Dutchman born in London, for which reason he
usually signed himself as "Johnson" or "Jonson."
Cornelis Jansen was essentially a portrait-painter, and one of
the quiet Dutch school. There is little emotion about his works,
no attempt at grandeur or effect. His portraits are, however, full
of character, admirably drawn and modelled, and suffused usually
with a soft tender colouring, which makes them very attractive.
On a cool gray background he would paint a head in grays and
blacks, with other colours kept down to a low tone, producing an
effect peculiarly pleasing for the decoration of rooms, and striking a
personal rather than an ornamental note in the composition. Great
portraits d'apparat were not in his line, and it was for this reason
probably that Cornelis Jansen was so little employed for court
purposes. He was, however, chief painter, as it might be said,
H5

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
to the gentry of England, as distinguished from the court and
nobility, and remained so even after the arrival of so formidable a
competitor as Anthony Van Dyck.
Van Dyck, with his pliable nature and receptive spirit, was as
quick to adapt himself to the prevailing fashions of portraiture in
England as he had been at Genoa and Antwerp in former days.
Earlier in life he had learnt something in pose and artifice from the
dignified portraits of Van Somer. He now took the respective
manners of Mytens and Cornelis Jansen and adapted them to his
own use, extracting from them just the qualities which were needful
to please his English patrons, and blending them with his own in
comparable grace and distinction. It is usually stated that Cornelis
Jansen became an imitator of Van Dyck, but it seems more likely
that Van Dyck studied him. Jansen retired to Kent soon after
Van Dyck's arrival, and on the outbreak of the Civil Wars, though
not till after the death of Van Dyck, he removed to The Hague,
where he continued to paint in as Dutch a manner as any of his
better known contemporaries in Holland.
Van Dyck's patrons were almost entirely confined to the court
and those immediately connected with it. During the few years of
his residence in London there is nothing to show that he ever left
it, except perhaps for Eltham, or that he visited any other part of
England. Few, therefore, are the portraits painted by Van Dyck
in England which are not connected with the great families at
court, or do not represent persons in the immediate service of the
king or queen.
One of the earliest portrait-groups which Van Dyck must
have painted after he settled in London was that of the widowed
Catherine Manners, Duchess of Buckingham, with her three
children; a picture which was formerly in the collection of the
Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim Palace, and is now in that of
Baron Arnold de Forest. The duchess is seated in mourning for
her murdered husband, whose miniature portrait she holds in her
hands. Round her are her daughter Mary, and her two boys,
George and Francis. The two boys, George, the well-known
second Duke of Buckingham, and Francis, the beautiful Francis
Villiers, who laid down his life for his king in 1648, were painted
by Van Dyck for Charles I., standing side by side in a charming
picture, now at Windsor Castle. One boy is in crimson, the other
in yellow. Their sister, Mary Villiers, was painted by Van Dyck
116

MARY VILLIERS, DUCHESS OF RICHMOND AND LENOX,
WITH MRS. GIBSON THE DWARF
In the collection of the Earl of Denbigh at Newnham Paddox

THE VILLIERS FAMILY
several times. Married first in 1634 to Sir Charles Herbert, third
son of the Earl of Pembroke, and quickly left a widow, she found
a second husband in the king's cousin, James Stuart, Duke of
Lenox. As Duchess of Lenox, Mary Villiers was painted by Van
Dyck, seated in white silk, in the character of St. Agnes, separate
versions of which are at Combe Abbey and at Windsor Castle.
The Duchess appears at full length in blue silk, with her dwarf
attendant, said to be Mrs. Gibson, a well-known dwarf artist, in a
portrait belonging to the Earl of Denbigh at Newnham Paddox,
and again in a similar portrait in the collection of the Earl of
Pembroke at Wilton. A full-length portrait of her in white silk,
with her little son as Cupid, was in the Hamilton Palace Collection.
Her husband, James, Duke of Lenox, was one of the most
intimate and trusted friends of Charles I. His uncle, Lodowick
Stuart, Duke of Richmond and Lenox, was a near cousin to
James I. and that king's most trusty friend and counsellor, and had
been rewarded by the grant of Lord Cobham's forfeited estates
in Kent. The widowed Duchess of Richmond and Lenox sur
vived until 1639, and a fine full-length portrait of her, formerly
at Cobham Hall, and now in the collection of the Marquess of
Bath at Longleat, is attributed to the hand of Van Dyck. It is
more probable, however, that this portrait is one of the fine late
portraits by Mytens, done under the influence of Van Dyck. A
portrait, however, of the Duchess of Richmond was at Whitehall
in 1639, aRd may have been an imitation of Mytens by Van Dyck.
The Duke of Lenox was one of Van Dyck's most frequent sitters.
He was twenty years of age when the painter settled in England,
and his portraits show a transition from the beardless, flaxen-haired
youth to the elegant courtier. In these portraits Van Dyck shows
the consummate skill with which he was able to infuse into a face,
naturally plain and unattractive, a look of grace and dignity which
almost amounts to charm. Van Dyck painted the Duke of Lenox
as ' Paris,' in his shirt and holding an apple, a portrait of which
three or four versions exist, the best being that in the Louvre.
He painted him again at full length in black dress in the ' habit of
St. George,' the best version of which is in the collection of the
Duke of Buccleuch at Montagu House, Whitehall, and in the same
habit, with his hand on the head of a favourite greyhound, which
is said to have saved him from assassination by waking him from
sleep. The portrait of the Duke of Lenox with a dog is known
117

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
by frequent repetitions, from which it is difficult to select the best,
preference being perhaps given to that formerly belonging to Lord
Methuen at Corsham, and now in the Marquand Collection in the
Metropolitan Art Gallery at New York, or that at Cobham Hall,
the Duke's own residence in former days. The Duke of Lenox
was not created Duke of Richmond until shortly before the death
of Van Dyck. At Cobham Hall there is also a fine full-length
portrait of a shepherd, which may be either the Duke of Lenox or
his brother, George Stuart, Lord d'Aubigny, seigneur d'Aubigny
under the French crown. Lord d'Aubigny's wife, Elizabeth
Howard, appears in a somewhat flimsy portrait in the collection
of the Earl of Clarendon at the Grove, and again in a double
portrait now in the Hermitage Gallery at St. Petersburg, in which
her companion may, perhaps, be her sister-in-law, Frances Stuart,
Countess of Portland.
Two of the younger brothers of the Duke of Lenox, Lord John
Stuart and Lord Bernard Stuart, afterwards Earl of Lichfield, both
of whom were killed during the Civil Wars, appear together in one
of Van Dyck's noblest paintings, now in the collection of the Earl
of Darnley at Cobham Hall, where it was in 1672 at the time of
the decease of the last Duke of Richmond and Lenox. The two
youths stand on a flight of steps. Their faces are long and not
exactly pleasing, but they have been endowed by Van Dyck with
an air of princely dignity and breeding, which is quite in keeping
with their haughty and disdainful looks. One of them is attired
in blue and white, with silver decorations, his cloak turned back
over his elbow, his arm being planted akimbo on his hip, while the
other is in a yellow jacket with crimson hose, the whole effect of
colour being something similar to that of ' The Three Children of
Charles I ' at Turin. A beautiful double portrait of two youths in
the collection of the Earl Cowper at Panshanger is known also
under the title of ' Lord John and Lord Bernard Stuart.' The
picture was purchased in 1682 by the Earl of Kent from Sir Peter
Lely's assistant, Jan Baptist Gaspars. In treatment and colouring
it resembles the double portrait of ' George and Francis Villiers,'
and the youths represented were perhaps the two sons of the famous
Marquess of Newcastle.
The Duke of Lenox's sister, Frances, Countess of Portland,
was painted by Van Dyck in a companion portrait of her husband,
Jerome Weston, second Earl of Portland; these two portraits were
118

LORD JOHN AND LORD BERNARD STUART
In the collection of the Earl of Darnley at Cobham Hall

PHILIP, EARL OF PEMBROKE
engraved by W. Hollar at Antwerp, whither they probably had been
taken during the Civil Wars. A portrait of the Countess of Port
land is now in the Grand- Ducal Gallery at Darmstadt. A full-
length portrait of Richard Weston, first Earl of Portland, the king's
most confidential adviser after the death of Buckingham, the Lord
Treasurer whose correspondence with Sir Balthasar Gerbier has
been alluded to before, is in the collection of W. Ralph Bankes,
Esq., at Kingston Lacy. Fine as this portrait is, it is possible to
recognize in it a late work of Daniel Mytens, unless, together with
the portrait of the old Duchess of Richmond and Lenox, it be an
imitation of Mytens by Van Dyck.
Another of Van Dyck's chief patrons was Philip Herbert, fourth
Earl of Pembroke and first Earl of Montgomery, Lord Chamber
lain of the Household. Portraits of his brother, William Herbert,
third Earl of Pembroke, Shakspeare's friend and patron, whom he
succeeded in 1630, have been attributed to the hand of Van Dyck,
but in every case without due reason. This passionate and eccentric
earl was painted several times by Van Dyck, and, according to
Aubrey, " had the most of his paintings of any one in the world."
Various portraits of Pembroke and his family are in the collection
of the present Earl of Pembroke at Wilton. The principal paint
ing there is the immense composition representing the fourth Earl
of Pembroke with his second wife, Anne Clifford, and his family,
including his son Philip, Lord Herbert, afterwards fifth Earl of
Pembroke, his son's wife, Penelope Naunton, and also his daughter
Anne Sophia, with her husband, Robert Dormer, Earl of Carnarvon.
This huge picture, which in 1652 was hanging in Durham House,
London, is a conspicuous instance of the inability shown by Van
Dyck in composing a portrait group of several figures. It is, how
ever, a work of great importance, though its surface and colouring
have been almost entirely ruined by an unfortunate and injudicious
restoration. Vertue in his diaries narrates that Lord Pembroke
gave the king the 'St. George ' by Raphael, " and begd of the king
to have it for a picture of the King and all the Royal Family by
Vandyke (which the King Promist him), which he designed as a
fellow to that great picture of the Pembroke family painted by Van
Dyke, but the troubles of the king coming on, and the death of
Vandyke, prevented its being done." The king, as is well known,
gave the Earl an important book of drawings in exchange for the
' St. George' of Raphael. There are good portraits of the young
119

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
fifth Earl of Pembroke, and his Countess, Penelope Naunton, in
the Dulwich Gallery, and also portraits of the Earl and Countess of
Carnarvon in the collection of the Earl of Carnarvon at Highclere.
Richard Symonds, who kept a travelling diary through Eng
land during his service in the Civil Wars, notes in December,
1652, the following portraits from the collection of the Earl of
Northumberland in Suffolk House, London.
" Van Dyck. The Earl of Northumberland that killed him
self in the Tower, because the king should not have his
lands. Done by help of another picture, after which this
was done. Also another of his ancestors, an old man
sitting in a gowne and leaning on a table, done by an old
picture.
" The Lady Newport, Mrs. Porter, Mrs. Murray.
" Lord Newport and Col. Goring in one piece and a boy
doing on Goring's scarf, rarely good another figure. The
Earl of Northumberland, half figure, holding upon an
anchor and ships in perspective. The said Earl and his
Lady and a daughter very sweet, and the ring bleu, vest of
satin, of the lady's is veluto.
"Another lady alone with a light bleu garment. The King
Charles, mezza figura. The king on horseback, less than
the life, a French Marquisse mezza figura.
" Other Dutchmen mezza figura. Lord Percy's picture."
Most of the portraits mentioned by Symonds are now in the
collection of Lord Leconfield at Petworth, the former seat of the
Earls of Northumberland. The entry is interesting as showing
that Van Dyck was not above copying an older portrait to please
an influential patron. The full-length portrait of Algernon Percy,
tenth Earl of Northumberland, one of Van Dyck's special friends
and patrons, with an anchor and " ships in perspective " has lately
passed from the collection of the Earl of Essex to that of the Duke
of Northumberland at Alnwick Castle. His sister Lucy, wife of
the brilliant James Hay, first Earl of Carlisle, was one of the best
known ladies of Charles I.'s court and gained notoriety from her
intrigues with Strafford and Pym, and her influence in politics.
She was painted by Van Dyck in the sprightly portrait at half
120

COUNTESS OF CARLISLE
length, now at Petworth, another version of which is in the collec
tion of the Duke of Northumberland at Syon House. Van Dyck
painted her again, during the last year of his life, in a double por
trait with her sister, Dorothy Percy, Countess of Leicester, a
picture which was formerly at Penshurst and Strawberry Hill, and
is now in the collection of Charles Morrison, Esq., at Basildon
Park. A full-length portrait at Windsor Castle also bears the
name of Lucy, Countess of Carlisle.
Her son, the second Earl of Carlisle, was painted by Van
Dyck at full length in a portrait belonging to Viscount Cobham
at Hagley. Her niece, the daughter of the Countess of Leicester,
was the famous Dorothy Sidney, Countess of Sunderland, known
throughout the literary world as the 'Sacharissa' of Waller's poems.
Waller wrote a poem on Van Dyck and his portrait of ' Sacharissa.'1
This fair lady's sweet and gentle face appears in a half-length por
trait at Petworth, where she is clothed in black with a red scarf, at
half length in yellow dress in the charming portrait in the col
lection of the Duke of Devonshire at Devonshire House, and as a
shepherdess with a large hat, in various portraits in the collection of
Earl Spencer at Althorp, Lord de l'lsle and Dudley at Penshurst
and elsewhere.
Another important family group with whom Van Dyck's name
is inseparably connected is that of the Whartons and Carys.
Philip, fourth Lord Wharton, was one of the most attractive figures
at the court of Charles I . The elder son of Sir Thomas Wharton
of Aske in Yorkshire, and of Philadelphia Cary, daughter of
Robert, Earl of Monmouth, he was noted for his beauty and
graceful figure. He was nineteen years of age in 1632, when Van
Dyck came to England, and in that year was married to his first
wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Rowland Wandesford. It was
probably to celebrate this occasion that Van Dyck painted the
famous portrait of him as a shepherd, which is one of the chief
attractions in the Hermitage Gallery at St. Petersburg. No por
trait by Van Dyck excels this in charm, even if others may show
a more robust and vigorous handling The painter is evidently
thoroughly in sympathy with his subject, in which, as Mr. Claude
Phillips has said, " Nature had provided him with a model of
faultless, yet, even in youthful freshness and harmonious perfec
tion, perfectly virile beauty." Lord Wharton, who subsequently
1 See Appendix I. (B).
121 R

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
became a strong Parliamentarian leader, at this time enjoyed the
friendship of the king and queen, and in the Memorandum so
often quoted occurs the entry, " Le Roy a Armes donne au Baron
Warto" and " Le Reyne au di Baron." Philip, Lord Wharton,
had, by his first marriage, an only daughter, Elizabeth, married
to Robert Bertie, third Earl of Lindsey ; a replica of the portrait
at St. Petersburg is in the collection of the present Earl of Lindsey
at Uffington. He married a second time in 1637 Jane, daughter
and heir of Arthur Goodwin of Winchendon and Wooburn in
Buckinghamshire. During this and the next two years he employed
Van Dyck to paint a series of portraits of his family, mostly at
full length, for which he built a special gallery in his new house at
Winchendon, near Aylesbury. Vertue in his diaries, quoted before,
notes early in the eighteenth century :
" At the Lord Wharton's house at Winchendon near Alesbury
is a galary built on purpose, wherein amongst other pictures
there is twelve whole lengths of Vandycke and six half
lengths."
again :
" The Duke of Wharton haveing strangely wasted his estate
and substance his family pictures and estate was pawn'd
or sold, his pictures that were at Winchendon painted by
Vandyke, 14 whole lengths was bought at once by Mr R.
Walpole and brought to London for wch it is reported he
payd ^1,500 about ^100 for each whole figure."
and again :
"Eleven whole lenght of Vandyke's painting of the other
pictures bought at the Ld D. of Whartons and brought to
London froom Winchendon the D.'s seat — bought by Mr
Walpole all painted between 1637 and 1640 having since
the opportunity to see these pictures out of the Frames at
Mr Howard's I lookt into them and perceive they are all
right pictures, but not the most curious or finisht but done
in a fine masterly manner, not studyed nor Laboured many
parts (especially the hand) tho well disposed and gracefully
are not determined the Jewells hair trees flowers lace etc.
loosely done appear well at a distance."
122

PHILIP, LORD WHARTON
The whole-length portraits in this series by Van Dyck were
those of Philip, Lord Wharton, Sir Thomas Wharton, his brother,
Arthur Goodwin, father of the said Lady Wharton, Elizabeth and
Philadelphia Wharton (?), Viscount Chaworth, Charles I., Henrietta
Maria, the Countess of Chesterfield, the Countess of Worcester,
Anne Cavendish, Lady Rich, Margaret Smith, wife of Thomas
Cary, uncle to Philip, Lord Wharton, and Prince Rupert. The
half-length portraits were those of Philip, Lord Wharton (already
described), Philadelphia Cary, his mother, Jane Wenman, wife of
Arthur Goodwin and mother of his second wife, Jane Goodwin
his second wife, Sir Rowland Wandesford, father of his first wife,
and Archbishop Laud. From this set there were purchased
from Houghton by the Empress Catherine for the Hermitage at
St. Petersburg the full-length portraits of Sir Thomas Wharton,
Elizabeth and Philadelphia Wharton, Charles I. and Henrietta
Maria ; and the half lengths of Philip, Lord Wharton, Sir Rowland
Wandesford, Jane Wenman, and Archbishop Laud. The portrait
of Arthur Goodwin, one of Van Dyck's most beautiful paintings,
being a symphony of soft golden brown and orange, was given
by Sir Robert Walpole to the Duke of Devonshire, and is now
at Chatsworth, where is also the portrait of Philadelphia, Lady
Wharton. The full-length portraits of Anne Cavendish, Lady
Rich, and Philip, Lord Wharton, were purchased by Philip, second
Earl of Hardwicke, from whom they have descended to their
present owner, Earl Cowper, at Panshanger. The portrait of
Viscount Chaworth passed to the collection of the Duke of Rut
land ; that of Catherine, Countess of Chesterfield, to the collection
of the Earl of Radnor ; and that of Margaret Smith was formerly
at Strawberry Hill and is now in the collection of the Hon. Mrs.
Trollope at Crowcombe, Somersetshire. This lady, Margaret
Smith, appears again in a full-length portrait in white satin in the
collection of the Duke of Bedford at Woburn Abbey. She was
daughter of Sir Thomas Smith of Parsons Green, Fulham, and
Frances Brydges, daughter of William, fourth Lord Chandos ; a
portrait of her mother, who became Countess of Exeter by a second
marriage, painted by Van Dyck, was formerly at Strawberry Hill,
a drawing for this being in the British Museum. By her husband,
Thomas Cary, brother of Philadelphia, Lady Wharton, Margaret
Smith was the mother of two daughters, Philadelphia, born 1631,
married to Sir Thomas Lyttelton, and Elizabeth, born 1632,
123

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
married to John Mordaunt, afterwards Lord Mordaunt of Avalon,
and mother of the famous Earl of Peterborough ; it seems almost
certain that these two sisters are identical with the children painted
by Van Dyck, and known as ' Philadelphia and Elizabeth Wharton,'
sisters to Philip, Lord Wharton, whereas the said Lord Wharton
had no sisters at all, and no daughters of a suitable age.
Another member of the Cary family was Martha, daughter of
Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex, and wife of Henry Cary,
Earl of Monmouth, elder brother of the aforesaid Thomas Cary ;
the full-length portrait of Martha, Countess of Monmouth, is in
the collection of the Earl of Radnor at Longford Castle. That
of her daughter, Anne Cary, Countess of Clanbrassil, also at full
length, by Van Dyck, is in the collection of the Earl of Denbigh
at Newnham Paddox. Another connexion of the Cary family was
Henry Danvers, Earl of Danby, who was painted more than once
by Van Dyck, a full-length portrait of him in Garter robes being
among the portraits at St. Petersburg purchased from Houghton.
Another family group was that of the Russells, who were con
nected with the aforesaid Margaret Smith through the marriage of
Francis Russell, fourth Earl of Bedford, with her cousin, Catherine
Brydges. A fine full-length portrait of this Earl of Bedford, in
black satin, painted by Van Dyck in 1636, is in the collection of the
Duke of Bedford at Woburn Abbey. Their eldest son, William,
fifth Earl of Bedford, who afterwards joined the parliamentary army,
and commanded the cavalry at Edgehill, was painted by Van Dyck,
together with the young George Digby, second Earl of Bristol, who
married Bedford's sister, Margaret Russell, in the superb double
portrait now in the collection of Earl Spencer at Althorp. This
painting is one of Van Dyck's most remarkable creations. The
two young men stand side by side, Bristol somewhat behind, in
black silk and velvet, with a rich lace collar, his hands being of
remarkable elegance, and Bedford to the front in red silk doublet,
red hose, buff boots, and a red velvet cloak over his right arm.
Books, papers, and an armillary sphere denote the student habits
of Bristol, and a breastplate and helmet the military profession of
Bedford. The painting is one of the few signed by Van Dyck.
John Evelyn, the antiquary and diarist, saw this picture at Beaufort
House, Chelsea, in 1679, when it was in the possession of the
Countess of Bristol. #
The Earl of Bedford here depicted became the first Duke ot
124

GEORGE DIGBY, SECOND EARL OF BRISTOL, AND WILLIAM,
FIRST DUKE OF BEDFORD ;,.-
In the collection of Earl Spencer, KG., at Althorp

THE CECILS
Bedford, and lived till 1 700, being, as it is said, at his death the
last survivor of those who sat for their portraits to Van Dyck. His
wife was Anne Carr, the beautiful and virtuous daughter of the
notorious Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, James I.'s favourite, and
his infamous wife, the Countess of Essex. A full-length portrait
of this charming lady, in white silk, is at Woburn Abbey, but the
most attractive portrait of her is the half length, in blue silk, at
Petworth, in which she is drawing on a glove.
The Cecils, children of James I.'s crookback secretary, Robert,
Earl of Salisbury, are represented in Van Dyck's list of sitters by
William Cecil, second Earl of Salisbury, with his son Charles,
Viscount Cranborne and his wife, the three portraits being in the
collection of the Marquis of Salisbury at Hatfield. Diana Cecil,
Countess of Oxford, is well known to travellers from the brilliant
portrait of her by Van Dyck in the Prado Gallery at Madrid. Her
sister Elizabeth, wife of William Cavendish, third Earl of Devon
shire, appears, as also does her husband, at full length in the
collection of the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth, while another
portrait of her is among the beautiful set of paintings by Van Dyck
at Petworth. At Knole, in the collection of Lord Sackville, there
is an amazingly truculent portrait of Edward Sackville, fourth Earl
of Dorset, the former lover of Venetia, Lady Digby, and the hero of
a famous duel with Lord Bruce, fought on the frontier of Flanders
and Holland, in which the latter lost his life, and Dorset was severely
wounded. In the same collection there is a portrait of his son's
wife, Frances Cranfield, Countess of Dorset, at full length in white
silk, a replica of which is at Windsor Castle.
Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, son of Shake
speare's friend and patron, was also painted by Van Dyck, but the
painter's most remarkable achievement in this family was the pre
sentment of Rachel de Ruvigny, Countess of Southampton, as
' Fortune seated on the Clouds,' painted in 1636. The lady was
proud and somewhat eccentric, and this strange composition was
no doubt of her own designing. Grotesque as is the appearance
of a mature lady with an ample figure seated on a cloud, with her
hand on a crystal globe, yet the skill of Van Dyck has made it not
only possible, but even remarkable for the graceful pose of the
head on the neck and bust, and for the wonderful gradations of
light and colour in the blue silk dress. These qualities are best seen
in the version now in the collection of Earl Cowper at Panshanger,
125

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
a replica of which is in the collection of the Duke of Portland at
Welbeck Abbey; a later school-version, with additions, is in the
collection of Earl Spencer at Althorp. The Earl of Southamp
ton married as his second wife Elizabeth Leigh, daughter of the
Earl of Chichester, a full-length portrait of whom, evidently dating
from Van Dyck's later days, and possibly unfinished, is also at
Panshanger. His daughter, Penelope, Lady Spencer, appears at
full length in a gracious and delicately coloured portrait by Van
Dyck, which is also at Althorp.
Many of Van Dyck's most brilliant sitters were young noble
men in the first bloom of aristocratic grace and beauty, endowed
with that undefinable quality, which makes the words " an English
gentleman " untranslatable into any other tongue. Many of these
young men were to lay down their lives for their king, either on
the scaffold or in the front of the battle. As they stand before
the spectator, often in the careless elegance of scarlet hose and
doublet, loose buff riding boots and feathered hats, it is easy to
understand the romance which has ever attached itself to the
Cavalier cause. It is also permissible to conjecture how much in
reality posterity owes to Van Dyck for its estimate of the various
parties in the long and disastrous struggle between king and par
liament. Charles I., Strafford, Laud, Newcastle, Grandison, and
other heroes of the struggle, all have a look of fate in their eyes,
as if they descried dimly the scaffold or the battlefield that awaited
them. But the portraits themselves are all elegant and joyous,
and both the melancholy and the careless grace were perhaps
nothing more than reflections of the painter's own temperament.
Fromentin well describes this, saying, " Les hommes de guerre
ont quitte leurs armures, leurs casques ; ce sont des hommes de
cour et de salon en pourpoints deboutonnes, en chemises flottantes,
en chausses de soie, en culottes demi-ajustees, en souliers de satin
a talon, toutes modes et toutes habitudes qui etaient les siennes
et qu'il etait appele mieux que personne a reproduire en leur parfait
ideal mondain. A sa maniere, dans son genre, par l'unique con-
formite de sa nature avec l'esprit, les besoins et les elegances de
son epoque, il est dans l'art de peindre des contemporains l'egal de
qui que ce soit."
The heroes of the Civil War stand before the spectator in the
gallery of Van Dyck's portraits. The young Stuart and Villiers
brothers have already been noticed. William Cavendish, Earl
126

HEROES OF THE CIVIL WAR
of Newcastle, victor at Allerton Moor, and one of the generals
defeated at Marston Moor, stands at full length in the " habit of St.
George " in the fine portraits at Welbeck Abbey and at Althorp.
Newcastle survived his royal master, who had made him a Marquess,
and retired to Antwerp until the Restoration, when he returned
and, as Duke of Newcastle, resumed his high place at court.
The two brilliant brothers, Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick, and
Henry Rich, Earl of Holland, sons of Penelope Rich, the 'Stella'
of Sir Philip Sydney, were painted by Van Dyck in full length
portraits, both known from several versions or replicas, noteworthy
being that of the Earl of Holland in the collection of the Duke
of Buccleuch at Montagu House, Whitehall, and those of the
Earl of Warwick at Warwick Castle, painted in 1632, and in the
collection of the Earl of Leicester at Holkham. Warwick, the
elder brother, became, like Lord Wharton, a puritan and strong
supporter of the Parliament against the policy of Strafford and
Laud. Holland, the younger brother, one of the favourites of
James I., created Lord Kensington in 1623 and Earl of Holland
in 1624, is said to have been so handsome that "his features and
pleasant aspect equalled the most beautiful women." He remained
faithful to the royal cause, and suffered on the scaffold in 1 649 with
Lord Capel and the Duke of Hamilton. The Earl of Holland's
daughter, Isabella Rich, wife of Sir James Thynne, was painted
in white satin with a lute, now in the collection of the Hon. Mrs.
Robert Baillie- Hamilton, recalling Waller's poem, ' Of my Lady
Isabella playing on the Lute.'
Mountjoy Blount, Earl of Newport, was the illegitimate brother
of the Earls of Holland and Warwick. He was painted by Van
Dyck at full length in the portrait now in the collection of the Earl
of Northbrook at Stratton, and again in a double portrait at half
length with George, Lord Goring, at Petworth. Goring, the most
brilliant and prodigal of courtiers, was one of the most conspicuous
generals in the royal army, and is represented in this double por
trait with a page tying on his sash, a motive to be repeated a few
years later in Robert Walker's portrait of the rival general, Oliver
Cromwell. Goring was painted again at half length in armour,
this portrait being now in the collection of the Earl of Clarendon at
The Grove. Both Newport and Goring survived the Civil Wars.
William Villiers, Viscount Grandison, cousin of the Duke of
Buckingham, is among the most attractive figures in this series,
127

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
with his long auburn hair, scarlet and gold dress, and plumed hat.
Portraits of him at full length are in the collections of the Earl of
Clarendon at The Grove, and the Duke of Grafton. Grandison
was to meet his death at the siege of Bristol in 1643. His wife
was a sister of Paul, Viscount Bayning, who was also painted by
Van Dyck, and was the first husband of Penelope, daughter of Sir
Robert Naunton, who, after the death of Lord Bayning, was re
married, in 1639, to Philip, Lord Herbert, afterwards fifth Earl of
Pembroke. A portrait of a young man in a similar dress, called
Viscount Grandison, formerly at Stocks Park, Hertfordshire, and
now in the possession of M. Herzog at Vienna, evidently represents
another young Cavalier, perhaps his brother, John Villiers, who
succeeded as third Viscount Grandison. As fitting companions to
Grandison may be noted the full-length portraits of George Hay,
second Earl of Kinnoull, Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard, in
the collection of the Earl of Clarendon at The Grove, and George
Gordon, second Marquess of Huntley, who also met his death on
the scaffold in 1 649, in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch at
Montagu House.
In the same year, 1649, the scaffold claimed two other victims
in the persons of Arthur, Lord Capel, whose portrait by Van Dyck
is in the collection of the Earl of Clarendon at The Grove, and
James, Duke of Hamilton, one of the most prominent actors in the
drama of the Civil Wars. The duke, with his rather gloomy aspect,
was painted by Van Dyck at full length in armour, in the collection
of the Duke of Buccleuch at Montagu House, and again in a
black dress in portraits of which versions are at Hamilton Palace
and in the collection of the Earl of Denbigh at Newnham Paddox.
The Earl of Denbigh also owns a full-length portrait of Mary
Feilding, Duchess of Hamilton, whose father, William Feilding,
first Earl of Denbigh, was painted by Van Dyck in a very curious
composition, representing him in a kind of oriental sporting dress
with a gun and a negro servant, a portrait which still remains at
Hamilton Palace.
A similar fate befell the brave James Stanley, Viscount Strange,
who was painted by Van Dyck in a large picture representing himself
and his wife, Charlotte, daughter of Claude de la Tremouille, Due
de Thouars, at full length with their little daughter, Catherine ; this
important picture is now in the collection of the Earl of Clarendon
at The Grove. Lord Strange became Earl of Derby in 1642, and,
128

JAMES STANLEY, SEVENTH EARL OF DERBY, AND
CHARLOTTE DE LA TREMOUILLE HIS
WIFE, WITH THEIR DAUGHTER
In the collection of the Earl of Clarendon at The Grove

PORTRAITS OF STRAFFORD
as a conspicuous leader in the Royal cause, came to the scaffold at
Bolton in 165 1. His wife is perhaps as famous as her husband
for the stout-hearted defence of Lathom House in 1644, and her
equally brave defence of the Earl of Derby's dominions in the Isle
of Man. Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Cleveland, another prominent
Cavalier general, who narrowly escaped the scaffold in 165 1,
appears in a full-length portrait by Van Dyck in the collection of
the Earl of Verulam at Gorhambury ; and again in a large family
group, with his wife, Anne Crofts, and his daughter Anne, after
wards Lady Lovelace, in the collection of the Earl of Strafford at
Wrotham Park.
The fine portraits of Sir Edmund Verney, Knight Marshal,
in the collection of Sir Edmund Hope Verney, Bart., at Claydon
House, Buckinghamshire, of Ralph, Lord Hopton, at Petworth,
and of the first Earl of Peterborough and his Countess, both at full
length, in the collection of Mrs. Elrington Bisset, the lady being
accompanied by a panther, may be mentioned as additions to the
list of Cavaliers painted by Van Dyck.
The principal actors, however, in this great historical drama
were not confined to the king and his gallant Cavalier officers.
John, Lord Finch of Fordwich, Speaker of the House of Commons,
was painted by Van Dyck in 1637 in a portrait now in the collec
tion of Lord Barnard at Raby Castle. William Laud, Archbishop
of Canterbury, the honest, if misguided, adviser of Charles I. in
ecclesiastical affairs, is familiar to all from the pathetic likeness of
him painted by Van Dyck. The careworn prelate seems conscious
of the fate that awaited him on the scaffold in 1640. One version
of this well-known portrait of Archbishop Laud hangs in Lambeth
Palace. Its claim to be an original from the hand of Van Dyck is
supported by the story, recorded in Laud's diary, how in 1 640, a few
weeks before his imprisonment in the Tower of London, the Arch
bishop one night at Lambeth Palace found his picture " taken from
the life — fallen down upon the face and lying on the floor, the string
being broken by which it was hanged against the wall," and regarded
the incident as an omen of his approaching fate. Other versions of
this portrait, claiming to be originals, are in the Hermitage Gallery
at St. Petersburg (from Houghton) and in the collection of Earl
Fitzwilliam at Wentworth Woodhouse.
Archbishop Laud had been preceded on the scaffold a few
129 s

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
years earlier by a greater man, the mighty Thomas Wentworth,
Earl of Strafford. No man played a greater part in this historical
tragedy, and no one owes a greater debt to Van Dyck. The various
portraits of Strafford by Van Dyck would in themselves be sufficient
to establish the painter's reputation. In them he seems to have put
forward his most strenuous efforts to delineate the features and
character of this most important figure in the history of England.
In the collection of Earl Fitzwilliam at Wentworth Woodhouse
there are a series of portraits by Van Dyck representing the Earl of
Strafford, which have descended through his heirs to the present
owner. The same gloomy, swarthy face is seen throughout. Straf
ford appears in one instance at full length in armour with his hand
on the head of a large dog, and again in armour with the general's
bdton, another version of this being in the collection of the Duke of
Portland at Welbeck Abbey. Similar portraits, mostly at half or
three-quarters length, occur in many other collections. The most
striking perhaps of all the portraits of Strafford is that in which he
is seated in a plain black silk robe, pausing in the act of dictation
to his secretary, Sir Philip Mainwaring, who sits writing at a table
by Strafford's left elbow. Lord Macaulay has well described this
picture in his essay on John Hampden, saying, " But Strafford,
who ever names him without thinking of those harsh dark features,
ennobled by their expression with more than the majesty of an
antique Jupiter ; of that brow, that eye, that cheek, that lip, wherein,
as in a chronicle, are written the events of many stormy and disas
trous years, high enterprize accomplished, frightful dangers braved,
power unsparingly exercised, suffering unshrinkingly borne ; of that
fixed look so full of severity, of mournful anxiety, of deep thought,
of dauntless resolution, which seems at once to forbode and defy
a terrible fate, as it lowers on us from the living canvas of Van
Dyck." The same writer again speaks of this portrait, saying,
" The account which Thucydides has given of the retreat from
Syracuse is among narratives what Van Dyck's ' Lord Strafford '
is among paintings."
These words of the great historian are sufficient testimony to
the powers of Van Dyck and to his importance as a painter of
portraits which can be ranked as historical documents. What would
the historian not give for similar portraits of Oliver Cromwell,
Pym, Eliot, Hampden, and other heroes of the rival cause, had
Van Dyck been at liberty or alive to depict them !
130

THOMAS WENTWORTH, EARL OF STRAFFORD, AND HIS
SECRETARY, SIR PHILIP MAINWARING
In the collection of Earl Fitzwilliam, K.G., at Wentworth Woodhouse

CHAPTER XII
Van Dyck's Friends at Court — Arundel, Endymion Porter, Inigo Jones, and others — His
Life at Blackfriars — Ladies of the Court — His Method of Painting — Latest Portraits
of Himself — Van Dyck's Marriage — Death of Rubens — Van Dyck revisits Antwerp
— Van Dyck at Paris — Return to England and Death of Van Dyck
IT is curious to find that among the numberless portraits attri
buted to the hand of Van Dyck in the private collections of
England, there are but few which can be accepted as genuine
outside the groups of portraits detailed in the preceding chapter.
It should be remembered that Van Dyck died at the outset of the
Civil Wars, and that therefore he could not well have painted any
person whose chief claim to distinction rested on their service to the
king in his army. Some fine full-length portraits, such as those of
Sir Francis Basset and Major-General Sir Edward Massey, would
seem to be exceptions, but even these may be the work of some
skilful pupil and imitator of Van Dyck after his death. The more
important among the portraits by Van Dyck which remain to be
described are those of persons with whom he was wont to associate
on terms of personal friendship. A few portraits of other prominent
public characters may be attributed safely to him, such as that of
Sir Edward Littleton, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, who
succeeded Lord Finch in 1640 as Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal,
of which two or three versions exist, no one being satisfactory
enough to be the original; that of Sir Thomas Hanmer, cup-bearer
to the king, mentioned with great admiration by John Evelyn in his
diary as then in the possession of Lord Newport, and now in the
collection of Sir Henry Bunbury, Bart., at Barton in Suffolk ; and
that of Thomas Chaloner, the regicide, which passed from Houghton
Hall to the Hermitage Gallery, St. Petersburg.
Van Dyck's early patrons, the Earl and Countess of Arundel,
remained so until the last. In 1639 Arundel was appointed to
command the king's forces in Scotland. Van Dyck painted the
Earl Marshal in armour with the commander's bdton in his hand.
Arundel appears thus in a full-length portrait in the collection
of the Earl of Clarendon at The Grove, but his likeness in this
131

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
costume is most familiar from the majestic painting in which he
appears at three-quarters length in armour with his hand on the
shoulder of his grandson, a painting known from many versions,
the best and, as it would seem, the undoubted original, being that
in the collection of the Duke of Norfolk at Arundel Castle. In
this fine painting Van Dyck shows that he had lost none of his
former skill. In dignity of pose, in reading of character, in depth
of colour, it is worthy to be ranked with such a masterpiece as the
'Charles V.' of Titian. Arundel in his later years was occupied
with many schemes for the planting and encouragement of colonies,
such schemes being much in the minds of those statesmen who
had interested themselves in foreign politics. Africa had just
begun to loom on the horizon of the political world, and Arundel
was particularly interested in a scheme connected with the island
of Madagascar. He had himself painted by Van Dyck, seated in
his study with the countess ; between them is a globe, on which
Madagascar is marked, and to which Arundel points with his
marshal's bdton ; this painting is also at Arundel Castle. The
Earl and Countess of Arundel also employed Van Dyck to paint
a large picture representing themselves and their children, on the
same scale as 'The Pembroke Family'; but this was never com
pleted, although the composition is familiar from a small copy of
Van Dyck's design completed by Philip Fruytiers in 1643, and
engraved by Vertue. Van Dyck also painted admirable portraits
of the two sons of the Earl and Countess of Arundel, Henry, Lord
Maltravers, who married Elizabeth, sister of James Stuart, Duke of
Lenox, and succeeded his father as Earl of Arundel, at half length
in armour, in the collection of the Duke of Norfolk at Arundel
Castle ; and William, Viscount Stafford, the second son, painted
in black satin, in the collection of the Marquess of Bute.
Another early friend of Van Dyck was Endymion Porter, the
same who had ordered from Van Dyck at Antwerp the painting
of Rinaldo and Armida,' purchased by Charles I. in 1630. Porter
remained one of Van Dyck's best friends, and the painter has
commemorated him in some important portraits. He appears at
three-quarters length in a rich red and white dress with an orange
cloak over the left arm in a portrait in the collection of the Earl of
Mexborough. A portrait of Endymion Porter attributed to Van
Dyck, which remained in the possession of his descendants until
1844, was purchased from them by the late Sir Thomas Phillipps,
132

ENDYMION PORTER
Bart., of Middle Hill, Broadway, and is now in the collection of his
grandson and heir, Mr. Fitzroy Fenwick of Thirlestane House,
Cheltenham. It is possible, however, that this portrait may have
been painted by William Dobson, who painted the two fine portraits
of Endymion Porter in the National Gallery and in the National
Portrait Gallery. Porter's wife, Olivia, daughter of Lord Boteler,
and sister of the Countess of Newport, was painted by Van Dyck
in a charming half-length portrait, now in the collection of Lord
Leconfield at Petworth, which was one of the pictures noted by
Richard Symonds as in the collection of the Earl of Northumberland
at Suffolk House. Porter, writing to his wife, says : " I was at Aston
where I had the happiness to see thy picture, and that did somewhat
please me, but when I found it wanted that pretty discourse which
thy sweet company doth afford, I kist it with a great deal of devo
tion, and with many wishes for the original, there I left it."
Endymion and Olivia Porter appear in a family group, with their
three sons, in a painting by Van Dyck which descended as an heir
loom from the Porter family to Viscount Strangford, and from
him to its present owner, Miss Constance Ellen Baillie. In one
of the account books of Charles Beale, husband of the portrait-
painter Mary Beale, he notes in February, 167 1-2: "My worthy
and kind friend Dr Belk caused the excellent picture of Endimion
Porter his lady and three sons altogether done by Sr Ant. Vandyke
to be brought to my house, that my deare heart might have oppor
tunity to study it and coppy what she thought fit of itt." H is " deare
heart " did copy the picture, for on April 20 following Beale notes :
" Mr Lely, to see us. Her coppy in little after Endimion Porter
his lady and three sons he commended extraordinarily and said (to
use his own words) it was painted like Vandyke himself a little, and
that it was the best coppy he ever saw of Vandyke."
Endymion Porter has usually been identified as the companion
of Van Dyck in the well-known double portrait in the Prado Gallery
at Madrid. It is difficult to recognize in the stout and rubicund
personage here represented the subject of the portraits by Van Dyck
and Dobson. It would seem more probable that the portrait is
that of another friend and patron of Van Dyck, John Digby, first
Earl of Bristol, who had been ambassador to the court of Spain
and was appointed gentleman of the bedchamber to the king, when
Charles I . left London for the north.
Inigo Jones, the famous architect, had been consulted by
133

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
Charles I. as to a residence for Van Dyck at the time of the
painter's first entry into the royal service. Probably the king
suggested to the architect that provision should be made for the
court-painter in the plans for the royal palace at Whitehall. The
portrait of Inigo Jones, painted by Van Dyck, a head only, but
remarkable for its power and character, is known from innumerable
repetitions. The original appears to be that which became the pro
perty of Inigo Jones's nephew and heir, John Webb, who sold it
to Sir Robert Walpole, with whose collection it was subsequently
purchased by the Empress Catherine of Russia, and is now in the
H ermitage Gallery at St. Petersburg. A pencil drawing, which may
be the original sketch, is in the Grand- Ducal Castle at Weimar.
Another conspicuous figure at court was the gay and witty
Thomas Killigrew, dramatist, poet, page of honour to Charles I.
and the jester whose merry speeches so often diverted the royal
circle after the Restoration of Charles II. His dissipated face with
long fair hair is seen in the portrait, in which Van Dyck painted him
to the knees in crimson silk, with his hand on the head of a huge
boar-hound. The original of this charming portrait would seem to
be that in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth.
Killigrew also appears in the remarkable double portrait at Windsor
Castle, signed and dated by Van Dyck in 1638. This is one of
the works by Van Dyck which has exerted most general admiration,
and for easy grace of pose and blending of colour it is difficult to
find a painting more excellent. Killigrew sits on the left, in black
dress slashed with white, and rests his left elbow on the base of
a broken column, his head resting on his hand ; in his left hand
he holds a sheet of sketches, on which is Van Dyck's signature.
Opposite him sits a friend, almost with his back to the spectator,
his head turned towards Killigrew, and in the act of reading from a
paper which he holds in both hands. He also is dressed in black
silk, slashed with white. This friend is usually identified with
Thomas Carew, the poet, and tradition narrates that the two were
rivals for the hand of the fair maid of honour, Cecilia Crofts, sister
of the Countess of Cleveland. If so, the rivals soon became friends,
for Cecilia Crofts became the wife of Killigrew in 1636, and Carew
wrote an 'Epithalamium' upon the festive occasion. A portrait of
this lady was formerly ih the collection of Mr. R. H. Cheney. The
person generally known as Carew has, however, been otherwise
identified by Mr. Peter Cunningham as William Murray, groom
134

THOMAS HOWARD, EARL OF ARUNDEL, AND HIS GRANDSON
In the collection of the Duke of Norfolk, K.G ., at* Arundel Castle

KILLIGREW AND SUCKLING
of the bedchamber, the ' Mons Morre ' mentioned in the Memor
andum already quoted, who afterwards became Earl of Dysart. This
is on the strength of a pastoral poem written by Sidney Godolphin
on ' Tom Killigrew and Will Murray ' beginning :
" Tom and Will were shepherds twain,
Who liv'd and lov'd together
Till fair Pastora crost the plain.
Alack ! why came she thither?"
Sir William Killigrew, also a dramatist and poet, elder brother of
Thomas, was painted by Van Dyck in the same year, 1638, his por
trait being in the collection of the Duke of Newcastle at Clumber.
Another dramatist and poet of the period, Sir John Suckling,
was painted by Van Dyck, standing against a rock, holding a copy
of the folio edition of Shakespeare. It is mentioned by Aubrey,
the gossiping biographer, who says : " My Lady Southcot, whose
husband hanged himself, was Sir John Suckling's sister. ... At
her house in Bishop's Gate Street, London, is an originall of her
brother, Sir John, of Sir Anth. Van Dyke, all at length, leaning
against a rock, with a play-book, contemplating. It is a piece of
great value." This painting was in 1864 m the collection of Dr.
Lee of Hartwell in Buckinghamshire. Van Dyck painted two
other portraits of Suckling, who through his mother was nephew
to Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex, and cousin to Martha,
Countess of Monmouth, and Frances, Countess of Dorset.
The gay Henry Jermyn, afterwards Earl of St. Albans, famous
for his romantic attachment to the queen, was also painted by Van
Dyck, his portrait being still preserved at the family seat, Rush-
brooke Hall, near Bury St. Edmund's.
John Ashburnham, the king's personal attendant, was painted
by Van Dyck, the portrait being at Ashburnham Place in Sussex.
A small copy of another portrait of Ashburnham, evidently from a
painting by Van Dyck, is in the National Portrait Gallery. His
second wife, Elizabeth, widow of John, Earl Poulett, a distinguished
Cavalier, was probably the ' Lady Poulett' whose portrait, painted at
full length in white silk, was formerly in the collection of the great
Earl of Clarendon, and is now in that of the Earl of Home at
Both well Castle. The portrait of a 'Mr. Rogers with a Dog,'
in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire, probably represents
another of Van Dyck's friends in the royal household.
135

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
Van Dyck lived like a prince in his house at Blackfriars. His
biographer, in the supplement to ' De Piles,' says that " he always
went magnificently Drest, had a numerous and gallant equipage,
and kept so noble a Table in his Appartment, that few Princes
were more visited, or better serv'd." Hard work in the morning
and rich banquets with fair ladies and gay courtiers in the evening
formed the daily routine of the fashionable painter. Musicians
played when royalty was present in the studio. His expenses were
great, and it was only by his work that he was able to meet them.
When the affairs of his royal patrons began to be embarrassed, and
money ceased to flow as freely from the royal coffers, Van Dyck
found that the debts owed him by the king, as well as his pension,
were often in arrear. It is evident that the king did not always
approve of the charges made by the painter, since he with his own
hand amended the prices asked by Van Dyck on the Memorandum
so often referred to. It is said that one day the king, while sitting
to Van Dyck, discussed with the Earl of Arundel, who was present,
the financial difficulties of the crown, and turning to the painter
asked him if he knew what it was to be in want of money. "Yes,
sir," replied the painter, "if one keeps open table for one's friends,
and an open purse for one's mistresses, one soon comes to the
bottom of one's coffer." Women were the fatal attraction of Van
Dyck's life, and on them he wasted his health and his money. One
fair siren, by name Margaret Lemon, ruled him and his house, and
was painted by him more than once. She appears in a portrait
at Hampton Court, which is evidently based on the well-known
' Magdalen ' by Titian, and again in a saucy portrait, known from
an engraving by A. Lommelin, the original of which cannot be
traced. Van Dyck painted her also as 'Judith holding a Sword.'
Vertue notes in his diaries that "It was wondered by some that
knew him that haveing been in Italy he could keep a mistress of
his in his house, Mrs. Leman, and suffer  Porter to keep
her company." This Porter was probably not Endymion but his
brother George.
Vertue also adds that " ^o£ he had for a half figure, 60
for a whole body." These prices hardly tally with the aforesaid
Memorandum, but it may be presumed that a special scale of
prices was expected from royalty itself. Throughout life Van Dyck
shows considerable avidity tor money, but it was not from avarice,
so much as to enable him to maintain the costly and luxurious
136

LADY STANHOPE AND MRS. KIRKE
habits in which he indulged. A sidelight on his gallantries and
his love of money is shown by the following extract from a letter
written on January 22, 1636, by Lord Conway, to the Lord-
Deputy, Thomas, Lord Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Strafford :
"It was thought that the Lord Cottington should have married
my Lady Stanhope. I believe there were intentions in him, but
the Lady is, as they say, in love with Carey Raleigh. You were
so often with Sir Anthony Vandike, that you could not but know
his gallantries for the love of that Lady ; but he is come off with a
Coglioneria, for he disputed with her about the price of her Picture
and sent her word, that if she would not give the price he de
manded, he would sell it to another that would give more."
This fair lady was Catharine Wotton, widow of Henry, Lord
Stanhope, at this time governess to the king's eldest daughter,
Princess Mary, and afterwards created Countess of Chesterfield in
her own right. The portrait by Van Dyck seems to be the one
alluded to in the special directions left by Charles I. for Colonel
Whalley, when the king secretly left Whitehall : " There are here
three pictures which are not mine, that I desire you to restore ; my
wife's picture in blew satin, sitting in a chair, you must send to
Mrs. Kirk ; my eldest daughter's picture, copied by Belcam, to
the Countess of Anglesea, and my Lady Stanhope's picture to
Carey Raleigh." The " Mrs. Kirk " mentioned by the king was
Anne Kirke, sister of Sir William and Thomas Killigrew, wife of
George Kirke, groom of the bedchamber and keeper of Whitehall
Palace, and maid of honour to the queen. Van Dyck painted her
at full length in a yellow satin dress, standing in a garden among
rose trees under a brilliant blue sky ; this portrait, which ranks
with that of Venetia, Lady Digby, as the finest of the portraits of
ladies painted by Van Dyck in England, is in the collection of
Earl Cowper at Panshanger.
Van Dyck also painted Mrs. Kirke in a double portrait, now
in the Hermitage Gallery at St. Petersburg, in which she appears
seated in a garden, together with Anne, Lady Dalkeith. This
lady was sister to Viscount Grandison, cousin to the Duke of
Buckingham, and wife of Robert, Lord Dalkeith, eldest son of the
Earl of Morton. She was one of the principal ladies in the house
hold of the queen, whose subsequent adventures she shared. Lady
Dalkeith appears as Countess of Morton in another portrait by
Van Dyck in the collection of Earl Spencer at Althorp.
137 T

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
It is clear that the renowned painter, Sir Anthony Van Dyck,
could not live a life of such luxury and splendour, and at the same
time devote himself with unabated zeal to the practice of his art.
He began more and more to leave portions of the work to his
assistants, and to adopt the position held by Rubens in the latter's
great working atelier at Antwerp. This he would seem to have
done himself at Antwerp before he came to settle in England.
Bellori, in his account of Van Dyck, says :
" Circa il modo suo di dipingere soleva egli condurre alia prima
e quando faceva li ritratti li cominciava il mattino per tempo e
senza interrompere il lavoro teneva a desinare suo quei Signori,
fussero pure personaggi, e Damergrandi vi andavano volentieri come
a sollazzo, tirati dalle varieta dei trattenimenti. Dopo il pranzo
egli tornava all' opera, overo se avrebbe coloriti due in un giorno
terminandolo poi con qualche ritocco. Questa era il modo suo
usato nei ritratti, se faceva istorie, misurava quanto lavoro poteva
compire in un giorno, e non piu. Si serviva dei riflessi, e sbattimenti,
e dove prefiggere i lumi. Usciva fuori a tempo con grazia e forza
simile in cib di suo maestro Rubens, seguitando le medesime
regole e massime di colorire, se non che il Van Dick riuscl pib.
delicato nell' incarnazione, e si awicinb piu alle tinte di Tiziano se
bene egli non fu si capace d'invenzionl, ni ebbe lo spirito e la
facilita nell' opere copiose e grandi essendo l'armonia di suoi colori
piu propria d'una camera."
A still more interesting record is given by De Piles in his
' Cours de Peinture par Principes,' who had his information direct
from Eberhard Jabach, the famous art collector at Paris, who had
known Van Dyck so well in former days at Antwerp. He says:
" Le fameux J abac, homme connu de tout ce qu'il y a d' Ama
teurs des Beaux Arts, qui etoit des amis de Vandeik, et qui lui a
fait faire trois fois son portrait, m'a conte qu'un jour parlant a ce
Peintre du peu de terns qu'il employoit a faire ses portraits, il lui
repondit qu'au commencement il avoit beaucoup travaille et peine
ses ouvrages pour sa reputation et pour apprendre a les faire vite
dans un terns ou il travailloit pour sa cuisine. Voici quelle
conduite jl m'a dit que Vandeik tenoit ordinairement. Ce Peintre
donnoit jour et heure aux personnes qu'il devoit peindre, et ne
travailloit jamais plus d'une heure par fois a chaque portrait, soit k
ebaucher, spit a finir et son horloge l'avertissant de l'heure, il se
levoit et faisoit la reverence a la personne comme pour lui dire
138

THOMAS KILLIGREW AND THOMAS CAREW
In the Royal Collection, Windsor Castle

HIS METHOD OF PAINTING
cme e'en etait assez pour ce jour la, et convenoit avec elle d'un autre
jour et d'une autre heure, apres quoi son valet de chambre lui venoit
nettoyer ses pinceaux, et lui appr£ter une autre palette pendant
qu'il recevoit une autre personne, a qu'il avoit donne heure. II
travailloit ainsi a plusieurs Portraits en un m£me jour d'une
vitesse extraordinaire. Apres avoir legerement ebauche un Portrait
il faisoit mettre la personne dans l'attitude qu'il avoit auparavant
modelee et avec du papier gris et des crayons blancs et noirs il
dessinoit en un quart d'heure sa taille et ses habits qu'il disposoit
d'une maniere grande et d'un gout exquis. II donnoit ensuite le
dessin a d'habiles gens qu'il avoit chez lui par le peindre d'apres
les habits m£mes que les personnages avoient envoyes expres a
la priere de Vandeik, Ses Eleves ayant fait d'apres Nature ce
qu'ils pourront aux draperies, il repassoit legerement dessus, et y
mettoit en tres peu de temps, par son intelligence, l'art et la verite
que nous y admirons. Pour ce qui est des mains, il avoit chez lui
des personnes a ses gages de l'un et de l'autre sexe qui lui ser-
voient de module." On the back of a portrait in the Royal Gallery
at Dresden, representing Thomas Parr, who died in 1635 at the
alleged age of one hundred and forty-eight years, is an inscription
which contains a statement: " Ce portrait a este peint dans son
vivant d'apres luy par Vandeick : le celebre Peintre le donna k
feu son ami M. Jabacque qui luy vit peindre chez luy a Londres."
It is not surprising, therefore, to find that in his later English
portraits Van Dyck shows a great unevenness of execution. The
design may be fine and noble, but the colour is cold and hard, the
texture loose, flimsy, and woolly, and the hands, with other access
ories, commonplace and monotonous. It is in the hands especially
that a great change is seen. Formerly they were a part of the
portrait with which Van Dyck took great trouble. They were
supple and sensitive, as in the case of ' Cardinal Bentivoglio,'
strong and muscular as in the portrait of ' Comte de Berg ' and
' Marten Ryckaert,' or delicate and refined as in his portraits of
ladies, such as ' Anne Marie de Camudio ' or ' Maria Luigia de
Tassis.' As Le Compte says, "Van Dyck peignoit les mains
d'une delicatesse achevee, d'une proportion tres correcte et d'une
chair si vraisemblable qu'il faut £tre aveugle, pour ne les pas croire
reelles." But in these English portraits they are too often the
mere mechanical repetition, as Jabach says, " de l'un et de l'autre
sexe qui lui servoient de mod&e." 139

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
The later portraits of Van Dyck show the face of a delicate
voluptuary. The features have sharpened, the cheeks grown thin
under the stress of work in the daytime and pleasure in the evening.
The long chestnut hair is brushed back in elegant disorder over
a forehead well modelled and intellectual in its form ; the upturned
moustache and the small tuft of hair on the chin shadow the mouth
with its lover-like lips and the small round chin, which are in them
selves a key to the weaknesses of Van Dyck's character. The eye,
however, is bright and alert, only it bears a look of melancholy
which makes one think of the words used by St. Paul, " Let us eat
and drink, for to-morrow We die." Portraits of Van Dyck like this
are in the Gallery of Painters' Portraits in the Uffizii at Florence,
in the Louvre, and in the double portrait already mentioned, said
to represent Vail Dyck and Endymion Porter, in the Prado Gallery
at Madrid. In this last painting the delicate figure, face and hand
of the painter is admirably contrasted with the robust, full-blooded
face and figure of his English companion.
The last portrait which Van Dyck painted of himself is probably
that in which he is pointing to a sunflower (tournesol). Clad in a
suit of rich crimson silk, the painter is seen to the waist, turned to
the right and looking at the spectator ; with his left hand he draws
out and displays the gold chain of honour which the king had
bestowed upon him, and with his right he points to a sunflower.
What is the allegory of this painting ? Van Dyck would seem to
suggest that as the sunflower turns its face to the sun as the latter
crosses the heavens, so does the painter's art depend upon the
warmth of the patronage which may be extended to it, while mere
payment in gold does not affect it so much as the continuing rays
of royal favour. This portrait is known from many versions, most
of them repetitions by his pupils. It was engraved by W. Hollar
soon after Van Dyck's death. The original painting is, perhaps,
that in the collection of the Baron de Gargan in Belgium. It is
noteworthy that his friend, Sir Kenelm Digby, is represented in
a similar portrait with a sunflower, attributed to Van Dyck, in
the collection of Mr. William Gladstone at Hawarden Castle.
This strange individual had since the death of his wife, Venetia,
become even more eccentric than before. He seems to have had
a very strong influence over Van Dyck, and it is even said that
the painter handed over his fortune to Digby's care, never being
able throughout life to keep any record or account of his daily
140

LATEST PORTRAITS OF HIMSELF
expenses. Digby was one of those characters who, while approach
ing to genius on the one side, are in danger of falling into the
deepest abyss of folly on the other. He fell a victim to the
snares of the fashionable craze for astrology, so much identified with
the names of Dr. Dee, William Lilly, and others. Alchemy and
astrology were all the rage, and in any age or country there are
never wanting plenty of clever impostors to take advantage of such
a passing caprice. It is said that through Digby Van Dyck not
only wasted his money on soothsayers and magicians, but also
seriously impaired his own health by joining Digby's experiments
in alchemy and chemistry in the search for the philosopher's stone
or the secret of making gold. There is nothing incredible in the
story, and the febrile, impressionable character of Van Dyck was
one quite likely to be swayed by the stormy, impulsive energy of a
mind like that of Sir Kenelm Digby.
At all events, what with hard work, what with wine and women,
what with nocturnal alchemy, if that story be true, the painter's
health began to give cause for great anxiety. He became restless
and irritable, and both his art and his health showed signs of
exhaustion. The troubles which now beset the royal family made
payments from the exchequer both scanty and irregular. Van
Dyck was not above complaining to his royal master when his
pension or other sums due were in arrear, but the king could really
do little in the way of payment, owing to his struggle with the
Parliament on the subject of supplies.
Particular vexation had been felt by the painter at the refusal
of the king to carry out a scheme for decorating the walls of the
Banqueting House at Whitehall with paintings, or tapestry, repre
senting the ceremonies of the Order of the Garter, with which
Van Dyck hoped to rival the painting by Rubens on the ceiling,
representing 'The Apotheosis of James I.' Four subjects were
suggested by Van Dyck, ' The Institution of the Order,' ' The
Procession of the Knights in their Habits,' ' The Ceremony of In
stalment,' and 'The Feast of St. George.' As the painter asked
13,000 crowns for his cartoons alone, and the whole expense was
reckoned at about ^80,000, it is not surprising that the royal
exchequer could not afford it at such a crisis. The original sketch
by Van Dyck for the procession of the Knights of the Garter is in
the collection of the Duke of Rutland at Belvoir Castle. A study
for two heralds is in the Albertina Collection at Vienna.
141

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
Charles I., however, seems to have been really attached to Van
Dyck, and, seeing how the disorder of his life was injuring his
health, the king determined to find him a wife. There was at court
a young lady of good family, Mary Ruthven by name. She was
the daughter of Patrick Ruthven, fifth son of John Ruthven, Earl
of Gowrie. Her mother, Elizabeth Woodford, had been the widow
of Thomas, Lord Gerard, of Abbot's Bromley, and had died in
1627. Her father was a prisoner in the Tower of London, and the
young lady was without a protector. One of her father's sisters
had been the first wife of the great Lodovic Stuart, Duke of
Richmond and Lenox, and another was the mother of the famous
Marquess of Montrose. The king arranged a marriage in 1639 or
1640 between Mary Ruthven and Van Dyck, whereby the painter
became connected with some of the leading families in England
and Scotland. The story goes that Margaret Lemon, the mistress-
in-chief of Van Dyck, was so incensed with the painter on his de
termination to marry, that she tried to wound and mutilate his right
hand, the hand on which he depended for his livelihood. Mary
Ruthven herself has left very little mark in the history of Van Dyck,
who is said to have had " no great Portion with his Wife, except
her Beauty and Quality." The poet Cowley, however, alludes
to their connubial happiness.1 A portrait of a sweet-faced lady in
white, holding a violoncello, in the Royal Gallery at Munich, is said
to represent her, and also a portrait of a lady in the character of
'Herminia' or 'Minerva/ wearing a breastplate and holding a
helmet, in the collection of J. C. Harford, Esq., at Blaise Castle.
It is possible that the lady represented here, who does not resemble
the lady in the portrait at Munich, may be the aforesaid Margaret
Lemon. On May 30, 1640, Rubens died at Antwerp within a month of
completing his sixty-third year. Even at that age his death was pre
mature,, for his genius was undimmed, his mind as clear and prolific,
his hand as active and industrious, as they had ever been. With
his regular habits and domestic felicity it might have been expected
that Rubens would have reached the years of Titian, and died in
harness at the age of ninety or beyond. At the time of his death
Rubens was full of work. His assistants were engaged in his atelier
on several large decorative paintings, including a series for the
King of Spain. They were now left without a head or a guiding
1 See Appendix I. (C).
I42

VAN DYCK REVISITS ANTWERP
hand. It is one of the greatest tributes to Van Dyck's reputation
that he alone seems to have been thought of as the person who
could take over and carry on Rubens's vast picture-manufactory at
Antwerp. Overtures were therefore made to him to return to his
native country. Philip IV. was anxious about the completion of
the paintings which he had ordered from Rubens. His brother
Ferdinand, the Regent, wrote that, as Van Dyck was expected at
Antwerp about St. Luke's Day, he thought it better to wait until
he could speak with Van Dyck himself as to finishing the paint
ings. But unexpected difficulties arose owing to the change in
the painter's health and temperament. Nothing now was good or
exalted enough for Van Dyck. If he came back to Antwerp to
take charge of the school of Rubens, he was not going merely to
complete and carry out the designs of Rubens. Van Dyck was
ready to commence them again himself, only they must be the
entire work of Van Dyck, and have nothing of Rubens about them.
Ferdinand writes to Philip that Van Dyck has his moods, so that
he could assure the king of nothing. So strange was the painter's
manner that he is described in a letter as ' archi-fou.' Van Dyck,
however, eventually did decide to go over to Antwerp. Affairs in
England were at an acute strain, and the royal service was no
longer one of security and profit. The king left London on his
campaign to the north, and removed his court to York. Thence
the Marquess of Hamilton wrote to the Earl of Arundel on Sep
tember 13, 1640: " My nobill Lord, your Lo: will be pleased to
cause send this enclosed pase to Sir Antony Wandyke, and againe
I crave your Lo: pardone for my not sending of it souner." Arundel,
it will be noted, appears again as Van Dyck's friend and repre
sentative, as he had done twenty years before. Soon after this date
the painter was in Antwerp, where on October 18* 1640, he was
entertained with great pomp and magnificence by his brother-artists
and other members of the Academy of Painting there, on the occa
sion of the Festival of their patron-saint, St. Luke.
Van Dyck found himself in Antwerp the acknowledged head
of the Flemish School of Painting. As Van Dyck refused to finish
the work of Rubens, Ferdinand no longer delayed this work, but
intrusted it to Gaspar de Crayer. Van Dyck's feelings, however,
were soothed by a fresh commission from the King of Spain. This
appears to have made him decide to leave England, and make his
permanent home at Antwerp, so that he prepared to return at once
H3

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
to London to make arrangements for his removal. A rumour, how
ever, reached him that the King of France contemplated decorat
ing the galleries of the royal palace of the Louvre with a series of
historical paintings. Van Dyck saw in this a possible realization of
his long-cherished wish to execute a series of such paintings, which
might put into the shade the works of Rubens in the Palais de
Luxembourg at Paris. In January, 1 641, he was at Paris trying to
obtain the commission for this work. The French painters, how
ever, combined against Van Dyck, as they did not appreciate his
work, and probably resented his haughty manner. They succeeded
in obtaining the commission for their own representatives, Nicolas
Poussin and Simon Vouet, though the latter did not live to take
any part in the work. Van Dyck was thoroughly exasperated and
disheartened by his failure.
In May, 1641, he was back in London, recalled no doubt by
the king, who required his services on the occasion of the marriage
of his eldest daughter, the Princess Mary, to the youthful William,
Prince of Orange, son of Van Dyck's former patrons, Frederick
Henry and Amalia of Orange. The marriage was solemnized
May 1 2. Van Dyck painted the bride and bridegroom together at
full length, the young couple being little more than children at the
time. This charming painting is now in the Ryksmuseum at
Amsterdam, and may be regarded as the last expression of Van
Dyck's genius. This commission and other portraits of the young
couple kept Van Dyck still in England, though the state of his
health caused much delay in their completion.
Jane Drummond, Countess of Roxburghe, who had been
governess to the royal children, wrote from Richmond Palace on
August 13, 1 641, to Baron de Brederode at The Hague, saying:
" Le malheur men a tant voulu que Monsieur Van Dyck a presque
toujours este malade, depuis vostre depart de ce Pays, tellement
que je n'ay pu avoir le portrait qu'il faisoit de monsieur le prince
jusqu'a ceste heure. Mais il a promis asseurement a la Reyne
qu'il auroit le vostre prest dans huict jours, et qu'il desiroit le porter
lui-mesme avec un autre qu'il faisoit pour Madame la princesse
d'Auranges. II est resolu de partir dans dix ou douze jours de
ce pays pour le plus tard : et en passant par l'Hollande il vous
donnera le portrait de Madame."
Van Dyck apparently carried out his intention of leaving
England, though he did not yet break up his establishment at
144

DEATH OF VAN DYCK
Blackfriars, probably because his wife was soon about to bear a
child. In October, 1641, he was again at Antwerp, making ar
rangements for his future residence; but early in November he
was again in Paris, probably to receive the final decision as to the
paintings in the Louvre. His health now gave considerable cause
for real anxiety, and he hastened his return to England. In a letter
to M. de Chavigny, who had offered a commission to the painter
from Cardinal Mazarin, Van Dyck writes that his health is too
bad to permit of him accepting the commission, though he hoped,
if it improved, to be at his command. This interesting letter, now
in an English collection, is evidently dictated, and only signed by
Van Dyck. In it he says " Cependant je m'estime extremement
redevable et oblige et come je me troive de jour en jour pire, je
desire con touta di diligensa de me avanser envers ma maison en
Angleterre pour laquele done je vous supplie de me fair tenir un
pasport pour moy et cincq serviteurs, une carrosse et quatre sevaux."
So with his carriage and four horses and his five servants, ' Signor
Antonio ' crossed the sea for the last time.
On Van Dyck's return to London it was evident that he was
in a dangerous state of health. The king, greatly concerned, sent
his own physician, probably Sir Theodore Mayerne, to attend
him, offering a reward of pf 300 if the physician could restore the
painter to health and life. But the hand of death was on Van Dyck,
and the physician's efforts were fruitless. On December 1 Lady
Van Dyck gave birth to a daughter, who was named Justiniana.
On December 4 Van Dyck made his will. On December 9 the
painter breathed his last, aged forty-two years, eight months, and
seventeen days. His infant daughter was baptized on the very
day that her father died. Two days later the remains of the famous
painter were interred, as he himself directed in his will, in the great
Cathedral of St. Paul, the spot chosen, as noted by Nisasius
Rousseel, the king's jeweller, Van Dyck's friend and neighbour at
Blackfriars, who attended the funeral, being near the tomb of John
of Gaunt in the choir of the Cathedral. A monument was sub
sequently erected to his memory by the king's order, representing
the Genius of Painting, the left arm leaning on a skull, and looking
at his own face in a mirror, which he holds in his right hand, and
below is the inscription :

145 u

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
QVI
DVM VIVERET
MVLTIS IMMORTALITATEM
DONAVERAT
VITA FVNCTVS EST
CAROLVS I
MAG. BRIT. FR. ET HIB.
REX
ANTONIO VAN DYCK
EQVITI AVRATO
P. C.
Both grave and monument, with the mortal remains of Sir
Anthony Van Dyck, perished with the cathedral in the Great Fire
which devastated London in 1666.

146

CHAPTER XIII
Will of Sir Anthony Van Dyck — His Widow and her Daughter — Marriage of His
Daughter and Renewal of Pension — Van Dyck's Assistants and Pupils
SIR ANTHONY VAN DYCK made his will on his
death-bed.1 The document is written in English, and was
made before a notary, Abraham Derkindee, to whom it was
evidently dictated. A copy of the will is preserved in the Registry
of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury at Somerset House
(P.C.C. 151, Evelyn). Van Dyck describes himself as "borne
in Antwerpe in Brabandt, weake of body yet injoyinge my sences
memorie." He directs that his body shall be buried " in the
Cathedrall Church of St. Paul in London." All his property in
Antwerp, with the exception of two bonds amounting to ^4,000,
he leaves to his sister Susanna at Antwerp, for the maintenance
of his illegitimate daughter, Maria Theresia Van Dyck, the said
maintenance to be carried on in the event of his sister's death " by
the foure Madams of the Nunnery where my said sister Susanna
now liveth." Out of this property also 250 guilders were to be
paid yearly to his other sister, Isabella. In the event of the death
of both his sister and his daughter at Antwerp, the property at
Antwerp was to come to his " lawfull daughter borne here in
London on the first day of December Anno Dni One thousand
sixe hundred fortie and one Stilo Angliae." All the rest of his
estate "moneys debts pictures & goods bonds bills & writings
whatsoever left behind mee in the kingdome of England with all
such debts as are owinge & due unto mee by the Kings Matie
of England or any of the Nobility or by any other person or
persons whatsoever the same shall all with that which shalbe
recovered thereof be equally divided betweene my wife Lady
Maria Vandyke and my Daghter new borne in London aforesaid
in just & equall portions." Should this daughter die her mother
was to have half her portion and the other half was to go to his
"other Daughter beyond sea." Should both children die the
1 For the full text see Appendix I. (A).
147

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
income of the property at Antwerp was to be enjoyed for life by
his wife, and the property then to pass to the children of his sister
Catherina, wife of Adrian Dircke (Diercx). Van Dyck leaves
legacies to the poor of St. Paul's and Blackfriars, and to all his
servants. He appointed his wife, Mrs. Catharina Cowley, and
Mr. Aurelius de Meghem, executrices and executor of his will.
He leaves special legacies to Catharina Cowley, who seems to
have nursed him in his illness, and also " for the being Guardian
unto my Daughter till she bee eighteene years of age." The will
was attested by the notary, witnessed by Derick Vanhoost, prob
ably one of his servants, and proved on December 13, two days
after his funeral.
There is nothing to show who the mother was of the daughter,
Maria Theresia, whom Susanna Van Dyck had under her charge
at Antwerp. As, however, she was married soon after this date, it is
probable that she was born during his residence in Italy. Maria
Theresia Van Dyck married Gabriel Essers, Drossaert van
Bouchout, and settled at Lierre, near Antwerp, where her first child
was baptized on February 16, 1642-3. Six other children followed,
but no descendant by this line practised art. The family of Essers-
Van Dyck was living in 1679 in Antwerp, where Maria Theresia
died a widow after 1697.
Van Dyck's widow was left, as directed in her husband's will,
all his property in London, including his pictures and the debts
owed to him by the king, the nobility and others. Such money
as she could collect together evidently formed the nucleus of a
considerable fortune. Vertue in his diaries says that "his widow
was courted by divers of quality — at last she marryd one Price of
Wales whose father expected much money to pay debts saying
that pictures could pay no debts." Her second husband was Sir
Richard Pryse, Baronet, of Gogerddan in the county of Cardigan,
North Wales. She did not, however, survive her first husband
long, for early in 1645 she was dead, having had no children by
her second marriage. Meanwhile Van Dyck's house and studio
at Blackfriars seem to have been looted by his servants. On
March 25, 1645-6, Patrick Ruthven, the father of Lady Van
Dyck, addressed a petition to ^ Parliament, stating that his daughter
was dead, and that all the pictures and works of art which Van
Dyck had left in his house at Blackfriars had disappeared, part of
them having already been smuggled on to the Continent by one
148

MARRIAGE OF HIS DAUGHTER
Richard Andrew. Ruthven prays for an injunction to prevent
Andrew from removing the rest of the collection, but without
much success, for on February 26, 1647-8, he was obliged to
renew his petition with further complaints against Andrew.
Van Dyck's infant daughter, Justiniana, was thus left an orphan
at the age of three and a half years. Her good aunt, Susanna, who
now became her guardian, on April 28, 1645, gave a power of
attorney to Jan Hooff, widower, who had formerly been an inmate
of Van Dyck's house, to administer the property which the little
girl now inherited. J ustiniana was probably brought up in England,
in the house of her stepfather, Sir Richard Pryse. Susanna Van
Dyck, zealous for the child's welfare, and as a true daughter of her
Church, sought to obtain the care of the child and her adoption
into the Church of Rome. On November 24, 1649, the good
be'guine made a will, leaving her property to her brother's bastard
daughter, Maria Theresia, but providing for Justiniana if she would
come over to live in Antwerp and become a Roman Catholic.
Towards the end of September, 1654, Theodorus Waltmannus Van
Dyck, pastor of Minderhout, the painter's brother, came over to
London to inquire after his niece, and if possible to bring her back
with him to Antwerp. He found, however, that the girl, although
only twelve years of age, had in 1653 been married to Sir John
Baptist Stepney, third baronet of Pendergast in the county of
Pembroke, so that his errand was in vain.
The wishes of Van Dyck's family were, however, destined to be
realized. In the summer of 1660, Justiniana Stepney, with her
husband and her maid, came over to Antwerp and took up their
residence in her aunt's house, ' der Berg van Calvarien ' in the
Begijnhof. Further, all three of them adopted the Roman Catholic
religion, and were baptized afresh in the church of S. Jacobus on
August 19, 1660. Sir John Stepney and his wife even went
through the marriage ceremony again. Justiniana inherited some
thing of her father's genius as a painter. She gave to her aunt,
Susanna, a painting from her own hand, representing ' Christ on
the Cross with four Angels catching the Blood from his wounds,'
which Susanna Van Dyck bequeathed to her friend and executrix,
Maria de Hondt. Cornelis de Bie in his 'Gulden Cabinet' in
cludes Justiniana Stepney among the notable female painters.
Sir John and Lady Stepney returned to London, and after
the Restoration Justiniana petitioned the king for the arrears of
149

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
pension which were still owing by the Crown to the estate of her
father, Sir Anthony Van Dyck. Charles II. agreed by patent of
May 5, 1662, to continue the pension of ^"200 a year, which his
father had granted to Van Dyck, to the painter's daughter. It
seems, however, to have been paid very irregularly, for in May,
1663, Lady Stepney petitions the king as to the stopping of her
pension, adding : "the Estate of her said Father being all wrong
fully kept from her and Imbezled by those with whom the same
was Intrusted in time of the late War." On December 27, 1664,
Susanna Van Dyck died at Antwerp, leaving her property to be
divided between her brother's two daughters. Lady Stepney had
to petition the king again for funds to go over to Antwerp, saying
that she had " occasion to goe for Antwerp in Brabant to looke
after a small fortune left her by her Ant there wch she may bee in
danger of Looseing unlesse she speedily repaire thither," and asking
for the payment of ^300 owing to her for arrears of pension. Sir
John and Lady Stepney were in Antwerp from November 12, 1665,
to the end of January, 1666, settling the inheritance, and then
returned to England.
Justiniana appears on the death of Sir John Stepney to have
been remarried to one Martin Carbonell. She was dead some time
before July 6, 1690, on which date her daughter, Anna Justiniana
Stepney, then of age, came to Antwerp on behalf of her brother,
Sir Thomas Stepney, Baronet, then on military service in Zeeland,
to see after the affairs of her two sisters, Priscilla and Mary
Stepney, who had entered the convent of the Order of S. Theresa
at Hoogstraeten. The last baronet died in 1772, leaving two
daughters only, the elder, Elizabetha Bridgetta, married to Joseph
Gulston, M.P., and the younger, Justiniana Maria, married, first
to Francis Head, and secondly to Andrew Cowell, from whom the
present Sir Arthur Cowell- Stepney, Baronet, is descended. In
the descendants of these two ladies the legitimate descent from
Sir Anthony Van Dyck is vested. In 1703 Martin Carbonell, the
second husband of Justiniana Van Dyck, made a fresh attempt to
obtain payment of the debts still due to the painter's estate.
It has already been stated that Van Dyck, like his master
Rubens, employed a number of assistants to help him with his
work. This practice he seems to have commenced at Antwerp,
and the account of his method given by Jabach bears this out.
The assistance given to him at Genoa by Jan Roos and Michael of
150

VAN DYCK'S ASSISTANTS
Antwerp could hardly have amounted to the same extent as that
given by other artists when he had once set up his permanent atelier
at Antwerp. Jean de Reyn, a native of Dunkirk, worked for Van
Dyck at Antwerp and accompanied him to England. Jan van
Bockhorst, known from his great height as ' Lange Jan,' has been
classed among the pupils of Van Dyck, but he seems rather to have
belonged to the school of Jordaens. The painters, Thomas Wille-
borts, called Bosschaert, Theodor Boeyermans, and Pieter Thys
(or Tyssens), have been classed among his pupils, but could be
better described as imitators of his style. The last-named painter,
however, is said to have joined him in England about 1639 for a
short time only. David Beck (or Beeck) of Delft, afterwards por
trait-painter to the Queen of Sweden, is said to have worked under
Van Dyck for a short time in 1640, and also Matthaus Merian, the
younger, of Frankfurt-am- Main. Care must be taken to distinguish
the portraits by these artists, which are often of great excellence,
from those that are really the work of Van Dyck.
Of the foreign artists who were connected with Van Dyck's
studio in London, the best-known was Remigius van Leemput,
of Antwerp, known among his contemporaries as 'Mr. Remy ' or
' M. Remee,' who was a skilful copyist, but does not appear to
have produced any original work. Van Leemput was one of the
chief purchasers at the sale of King Charles's collection, and some
important paintings were found in his possession after the Restora
tion. He died in 1675, and his collection of pictures and works
of art was advertised for sale by auction at Somerset House in
May, 1677. Hendrik van Steenwyck, the younger, of The Hague,
the architectural painter, was introduced by Van Dyck to the court
of Charles I., where he obtained great credit for his skilful effects
of perspective in paintings, some of which were on a very small
scale. He was employed by Van Dyck, and also by Mytens, to
draw architectural backgrounds into their portraits. Van Dyck
drew his portrait for the ' Iconographie.' Jan van Belcamp was
another artist much employed as a copyist and assistant in London
during the residence of Van Dyck. He was occupied in copying
for the king portraits of an earlier date on a larger scale to suit the
royal palaces, some of which are still to be seen at St. James's
Palace and at Hampton Court. It is uncertain whether he was
actually employed as a regular assistant to Van Dyck, or whether
he was merely called in from time to time to carry out special pieces
151

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
of work, such as perspective backgrounds in the style of Steenwyck,
in which he seems to have had great skill. A full-length portrait
of Henrietta Maria, in bluish green satin, lately acquired for the
National Portrait Gallery from Mulgrave Castle, which may perhaps
be attributed to Van Belcamp, has a perspective background of this
sort, evidently copied from one by Steenwyck, such as that in the
great portrait of Charles I. by Daniel Mytens in the Royal Gallery
at Turin. Van Belcamp was concerned, like Van Leemput, in
the sale of King Charles's collection, and was dead in 1653. The
registers of St. Anne's, Blackfriars, contain entries of the following
burials :
" Jasper Lanfranck, a Dutchman, from Sir Anthony Vandikes,
buried 14th February, 1638."
"Martin Ashent, Sir Anthony Vandike's man, buried 12th
March, 1638."
It is probable that of these two men, the former, Lanfranck,
was one of Van Dyck's assistants, and the latter, Martin Ashent,
merely a servant in his household.
The most interesting personality among the assistants of Van
Dyck was William Dobson, the Englishman. Dobson was the
son of parents in a good station, his father being a Master in the
Alienation Office, and a friend of the great Francis Bacon, Lord
Chancellor of England, at St. Albans. Owing to his father's
extravagance the young Dobson was forced to earn his living, and
adopted the profession of a painter. He appears to have studied
under Francis Clein, the manager of the tapestry works at
Mortlake, but was apprenticed to Robert Peake, a painter and
picture-dealer in Holborn. Peake was the son of Robert Peake,
serjeant-painter to James I., who was one of the 'picture-makers'
so common in the first years of the seventeenth century, when small
hard and dry panel-portraits were turned out by the score among
the dealers' shops in London. The younger Robert Peake kept
such an establishment together with his brother, William Peake,
on Snow Hill near Holborn Conduit. Here, like their father, they
sold portraits, copies of paintings, and engravings. Besides Dobson
for painting, they employed the celebrated William Faithorne as
an engraver. During the Civil Wars, Robert Peake distinguished
himself at the defence of Basing House, in which, curiously enough,
152

WILLIAM DOBSON
both the engravers Faithorne and Hollar took part, and was
knighted by the king for his services. The story goes that Van
Dyck was passing down Snow Hill, when he saw in the window
of Peake's shop a portrait which struck him so much that he
went in and inquired for the author. Being directed to Dobson's
residence, Van Dyck found him working in a garret and in great
poverty. Van Dyck therefore took him into his employment, and
eventually recommended him to the king and to his noble sitters.
After Van Dyck's death Dobson stepped into the vacant place in
the royal service. He was appointed serjeant-painter to the king,
and even to be groom of the privy-chamber. In this capacity
Dobson attended the court at Oxford, where the king, Prince
Rupert and others sat to him, and for a time he was overwhelmed
with fashionable commissions. The failure of the royal cause,
however, brought about a change in Dobson's fortunes, and he fell
into pecuniary trouble, was thrown into a debtors' prison, and died
in 1646, at the age of thirty-six only, less than five years after his
master. Dobson had great skill as a painter, and his works are now
beginning to be valued according to their merit. In his earlier
days he was employed among other patrons by the famous gardeners
and antiquaries at Lambeth, the Tradescants, and a very remarkable
series of portraits by Dobson of this family is still preserved in
the Ashmolean Collection, now in the University Galleries at
Oxford. His later portraits and groups are all in the manner of
Van Dyck, and in some of them, such as the two portraits of
' Endymion Porter ' in the National Gallery and the National
Portrait Gallery, the portrait of himself formerly in the collection
of Sir Robert Peel, the portrait group of his own family at
Hampton Court, the portrait group of ' Francis Carter (?) and his
Family' in the National Gallery of Ireland, and other similar
paintings, he shows powers which render him worthy of mention
even by the side of his master, Van Dyck. A study of the genuine
paintings by Dobson and the portraits painted by Van Dyck
during the last two or three years of his life leads to the opinion
that Dobson was for a time the principal assistant employed by
Van Dyck, especially in the silks and satins of his female portraits.
A number, moreover, of reputed replicas by Van Dyck's own hand,
such as the portraits of ' Inigo Jones,' ' Van Dyck with a Sun
flower,' and others, may also be safely attributed to Dobson.
153 x

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
Another Englishman, James Gandy, has been reckoned among
the pupils of Van Dyck. Gandy painted several portraits in Ireland
while in the train of the Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Ormonde.
Pilkington, in his ' Dictionary of Painters,' says that " several of
his copies after Van Dyck, which were in the Ormonde Collection
at Kilkenny, were sold for original paintings by Van Dyck."
Another painter in London, who has been classed among the
mere imitators of Van Dyck, was Adriaen Hanneman. Born at
The Hague about 1601, Hanneman had been a pupil of Anthony
van Ravesteyn there, and came to England as a pupil or assistant
to Daniel Mytens. He had, however, a forcible style of his own,
which was further developed by his association with the portrait-
painter, Cornelis Jansen van Ceulen. Hanneman sought in marriage
the daughter of Nicasius Rousseel, the king's jeweller, by his second
wife Clara, sister of Cornelis Jansen, but was rejected. Hanneman
painted a portrait of Cornelis Jansen with his wife and daughter,
which Vertue himself saw in the house of Antony Rousseel (or
Russel), grandson of the said Nicasius. The connexion is very
interesting. Nicasius Rousseel, the jeweller, lived in Blackfriars
near Van Dyck, and as a friend and neighbour he attended the
great painter's funeral in St. Paul's Cathedral. The three painters
therefore, Van Dyck, Hanneman, and Cornelis Jansen, may easily
have met under the worthy jeweller's roof.
Hanneman's portraits have a strong and powerful vigour of
their own, and though they are evidently based on those by Van
Dyck as the style then in fashion, they are in scheme of colour and
in actual handling quite capable of being distinguished from those
of his greater contemporary. A careful expert examination would
probably lead to the separation from the later portraits ascribed to
Van Dyck of a number which may be attributed to Hanneman.
Among these possibly may be ranked the two beautiful and justly-
admired portraits of ' Colonel Charles Cavendish ' and ' Viscount
Falkland ' in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire at Devon
shire House. A fine portrait of William III. as a boy, signed
by Hanneman and dated 1664, is at Hampton Court, and it is
evident from this that the brilliant portrait in the Hermitage
Gallery at St. Petersburg, said to be that of William II. of
Orange by Van Dyck, is really a portrait of William III. by
Hanneman. The fine set of portraits of Constantyn Huygens
and his family in the Royal Gallery at The Hague, was for many
154

SIR PETER LELY
years attributed for similar reasons to Van Dyck, but has now
been restored to Hanneman. Hanneman is said to have accom
panied Van Dyck to Antwerp in 1640, and thence to have
returned to The Hague, where he continued to practise painting
with success, and died about 1668.
Nicasius Rousseel (or Russel), the jeweller, had a son, Theo
dore Russel, who lived for some nine years as assistant to Cornelis
Jansen, and also served Van Dyck in the same capacity for a
short period before that painter's death. He copied a great many
of Van Dyck's portraits on a small scale in a very neat way, and
these copies are frequently to be found in the royal and other
collections. The same practice was carried on by his son, Antony
Russel, who lived till 1743, and thus carried on the traditions of
Van Dyck right up to the days of Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Another well-known painter who has erroneously been classed
among the pupils and assistants of Van Dyck was Peter Lely, or
Van der Faes. Lely, who was a pupil of Frans de Grebber at
Haarlem, did not come to England until April, 1641, when he
came over as painter in the train of the young prince, William of
Orange, on the occasion of his marriage to Princess Mary, the
eldest daughter of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria. He is said
to have worked at first for Van Dyck's friend, Geldorp, so that he
quickly became a great admirer of Van Dyck, and after that
painter's death modelled his style for the time being entirely on
that of Van Dyck. In addition to this Lely seems to have
acquired the bulk of the drawings, sketches, etc., left by Van
Dyck, and to have collected a number of original paintings by the
same painter, which were sold by auction after his death in 1680.
A survey of the latest portraits by Van Dyck shows a certain kind
of negligent indolence, of sentimental pose and restless flutter,
which is quite opposed to the statuesque dignity of the portraits
painted in his best periods at Genoa or at Antwerp. Shepherds,
shepherdesses, nymphs, and other fantastic poses take the place of
the warriors or statesmen of yore. Such artificialities easily become
conventional and in the hands of Lely they became so to excess.
Clever painter as he was, he smothered the grand traditions of Van
Dyck beneath a false glamour of French affectation and conceit,
until they perished for a time in wanton decay.
One artist who remains to be mentioned was Anne Carlisle,
who appears to have been well born and to have had considerable
155

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
skill in painting. She was in favour at court, and her paintings
were admired by Charles I. It is possible that she was one of Van
Dyck's assistants, for it is recorded that Charles I. presented her
and Sir Anthony Van Dyck "with as much Ultra-Marine at one
time, as cost him above 500^." The scandal of the period
imputed to Van Dyck a tenderer relation with the fair Mrs.
Carlisle. She is mentioned, however, by Sir Theodore Mayerne
in a treatise on painting, as " femme vertueuse, qui peint tres-bien."
A small portrait of Charles I., which bears the name of Anne
Carlisle, is in the collection of Earl Brownlow at Belton House,
Grantham. Anne Carlisle survived until 1680, and is mentioned
with honour by Sir William Sanderson in his ' Graphice,' published
in 1658. Sir Theodore Mayerne in the same manuscript in which
he mentions Mrs. Carlisle, also alludes to a " M. Cary, disciple of
Mr. Van Deick," in July, 1634.
George Jamesone, the portrait-painter of Aberdeen, sometimes
known as the " Scottish Van Dyck," has been classed among
the pupils and imitators of Anthony Van Dyck. This is highly
improbable, chiefly because Jamesone appears to have been no
less than eleven years senior in age to Van Dyck. A certain
though not very strong similarity between the works of Jamesone
and Van Dyck may be accounted for by the tradition that Jame
sone, after practising for a time as a painter of portraits in Scotland
in the hard dry manner on panel, went to Antwerp to study under
Rubens, and was there a fellow-assistant with Van Dyck. Beyond
the influence of the Rubens School in his works, there is nothing
to connect Jamesone with his great contemporary.
In the private collections in England portraits attributed to
Van Dyck are numbered by the hundred, regardless of their merits.
It is evident that it would have been a sheer impossibility for Van
Dyck to have executed himself all these portraits during the short
period of his life, only some six or seven years, which he spent in
England, or even to have issued them from his workshop with
little more than his name to denote his share in the work. The
exhibitions of paintings by Van Dyck held at the Grosvenor
Gallery in 1887, and at the Royal Academy in Burlington House
in the early months of 1900,1 bore testimony to the misuse which
has been made of Van Dyck's name, especially with reference to
1 See Appendix II.
156

IMITATORS OF VAN DYCK
portraits. It does not require any very special powers of observa
tion to distinguish four classes among the works ascribed to Van
Dyck :
(i) Those which may safely be attributed wholly or for the
main part to the painter's own hand.
(2) Those which were designed by Van Dyck, but executed
almost entirely by his pupils, many being worked over by
the painter, and issued from his atelier under his name.
(3) Copies by his pupils and assistants working under the
immediate influence of Van Dyck.
(4) Paintings, resembling the work of Van Dyck, but really
the work of another hand.
Taking the first class, those portraits which may safely be
attributed wholly or for the main part to the painter's own hand,
it has already been stated that outside the royal family Van Dyck's
work was almost entirely confined to a few of the great families con
nected with the court, and to court officials. The extent of his actual
personal share in this work remains very various and uncertain. The
second class is perhaps the most numerous, for in England Art is
and has been always governed by Fashion, the most fickle and the
most careless of patrons, La Belle Dame sans Merci of Art. So long
as they were in the fashion the lords and ladies of the court cared
little about the technical excellence of a portrait, and in reality they
would have been as placidly content, even in Van Dyck's lifetime,
with the insipid fripperies of the Lely school, or the bewigged and
vacuous postures of Kneller, had these styles happened to come
into vogue. Van Dyck can hardly be blamed, if in response to
the clamour of fashion he lowered his standard and adulterated his
wares, in order to supply the demands of vainglorious Cavaliers
or jealous and imperious ladies of rank. His own art remained
undimmed to the last, and there was never at any time a stroke
of his own brush which showed any weakness or faltering in his
hand. As Mr. Claude Phillips has well said : "The clamorous im
patience of fashion has ever been harmful to the painter, whether that
painter be Raphael, Rubens, Van Dyck, Reynolds, Lawrence or
Millais. When, however, our master was stimulated by his subject,
and did his work himself, he painted with a sovereign skill, with a
157

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
command of all the resources of his art such as he had not at
any previous stage of his practice exhibited." 1
An anonymous writer in a manuscript in the Louvre, known
as the " Manuscrit Godde," is believed by M. Hymans, who has
studied the manuscript carefully, to be Francois Mols of Antwerp,
who collected during the eighteenth century many valuable notes
on Rubens and his school, and especially about Van Dyck. The
owners of spurious Van Dycks at the present day may be to a
great extent exonerated from the charge of trying to pass off copies
as original works, since the notes of the said writer show that this
practice had been well established within a century of the painter's
death. He says, speaking of the portraits of Van Dyck's latest
years in England : "Si ces portraits ont fait tort a sa memoire, les
copies qu'il faisait faire de ses ouvrages par des eleves qu'il voulait
favoriser n'ont pas moins offusque sa gloire aux yeux de bien
des gens, car le temps, l'ignorance et la mauvaise foi ont fait des
originaux du plus grand nombre des ces copies. Si Ton joint a
cela le nombre d'autres copies qui ont ete faites hors de sa vue
ou apres sa mort, de m£me que plusieurs originaux peints dans sa
maison par ses eleves, dans un temps ou ceux-ci n'etaient point
encore formes et que les demi-connaisseurs croient etre aussi de
sa main, on aura une liste prodigieuse de portraits mediocres ou
mauvais qui passent chez quelques personnes pour erre de ce grand
peintre, dont un certain nombre sont en effet de sa main, mais
dont le reste n'est que de ses copistes."
In these words Mols, if the anonymous writer be he, does
justice to the art and to the memory of the great painter. It will
be seen that he distinguishes three classes of copies :
i . Copies made in the studio of Van Dyck by his best assistants and
with his approval.
2. Copies made as mere exercises by inexperienced students.
3. Copies made after his death or without any reference to the
painter or any authority from him.
It is to the first and third of these three classes of copies that
so many of the so-called portraits by Van Dyck in English private
collections belong. That their number should be so great is not
1 'Nineteenth Century,' Nov., 1899.
158

THE VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH THE ABBE SCAGLIA
In the collection of Miss Alice de Rothschild

COPYISTS OF VAN DYCK
surprising, for after the painter's death and during the general sus
pension of all art-patronage during the Civil Wars and the greater
part of the Commonwealth, the pupils and assistants of Van Dyck
had ample leisure for copying those works by their master to which
they could obtain access.
George Geldorp, Van Dyck's former friend and host, was
probably one of the chief agents in this business. An indifferent
painter himself, he seems to have made his house in Drury Lane a
kind of centre for artists, and at the time of the dispersal of Charles I . 's
collection a number of works of art were saved or taken in exchange
for money due from the Crown, and stored in Geldorp's house,
where they were found at the Restoration. Vertue notes that
" Geldrop painter of Antwerp [had] at his house in Archer Street
Jan. 4, 1658, abundance of copies of Ritrattoes of Vandyke ; several
that were the King's Pictures, Italian and others."
Vertue also notes that " Weesop, painter, came here in the time
of Vandyke, 1641, lived here till 1649 then went away, but said he
would never stay in a Country where they had cut of their king's
head in the face of all the world and was not asham'd of the action.
Many pictures painted by him pass for Vandyke."
Another noted copyist of Van Dyck's portraits was Henry
Stone, the eldest son of Nicholas Stone, the famous statuary, and
generally known as ' Old Stone ' to distinguish him from his
younger brothers, Nicholas and John Stone. Henry Stone was
never a pupil or even an assistant of Van Dyck, for he passed the
greater part of his life in Holland, France and Italy, and did not
return to England until 1642, after Van Dyck's death. Stone then
devoted himself to copying, and was particularly successful in the
copies which he made from portraits by Van Dyck.
These artists were probably only a few among the many whc
found it profitable to copy the paintings of Van Dyck. The copies
by Remigius van Leemput were usually on a small scale, as were
those of Theodore Russel, to which allusion has already been made.
As the fashion for portraits by Van Dyck declined during the
Dutch influence of William III., and at the gloomy German court
of George I., it is not likely that making copies from Van Dyck
would continue to be a lucrative profession. But in the age of Sir
Joshua Reynolds and Gainsborough the taste for Van Dyck was
greatly revived, chiefly owing to the influence of those two great
painters, both of whom were assiduous students and copyists of
159

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
Van Dyck's work, although of course the copies made by them were
entirely for their own benefit and instruction.
It is to be hoped that at the present day owners of portraits, who
pride themselves on their ancestry, will refrain from claiming as the
genuine work of the incomparable Van Dyck the many cold and
vapid copies, which exist, unfortunately, in so great a number.

1 60

PORTRAIT OF VAN DYCK.
From his own etching.

CHAPTER XIV
Engraving in the Netherlands— The ' Iconographie' of Van Dyck— Van Dyck
as an Etcher
NO account of the life and works ot Anthony Van Dyck
would be complete without some notice of the famous
series of engraved portraits which is known as the ' Icono
graphie' or the 'Centum Icones' of Van Dyck. This series
not only forms in itself a most important collection of the painter's
actual work, but also ranks among the most remarkable and inter
esting productions of the engraver's art.
The art of engraving reached a high pitch of excellence at
Antwerp, though the great pre-eminence of painting among the
Fine Arts had led to a decline in the use of engraving as a vehicle
for original pictorial expression, such as had been the case with
Albrecht Durer, Lucas van Leyden, Hendrik Goltzius and others,
and was soon to be employed with such conspicuous success by
Rembrandt and other artists of the Dutch School. North of the
Alps in Germany and the Netherlands both the arts of painting
and engraving retained for a long time the traces of their early
connexion with the arts of the goldsmith, the jeweller, or the glass-
painter, which accounts for much of the cramped formality which
prevailed in them. When, however, the northern artists began to
cross the Alps and visit Italy, they acquired and brought back
with them certain new ideas both of painting and engraving, in
both cases often of questionable value. With regard to engraving
the Flemish artists in particular adopted readily the easy academic
grace and freedom of the Italian etchers, such as Agostino
Carracci, Tempesta, and other similar artists, but being devoid of
the same innate feeling for natural charm and style, they soon let
the art of original engraving run to seed and decay in their hands.
On the other hand the idea of using the engraver's art for mere
translation of painting into black and white, yoking it as it were to
the painter's art, which had been introduced with such success by
Raphael and his followers, was one which appealed readily to the
practical minds of the northern artists. The engraver came thus
161 V

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
to look upon his art as merely ancillary to that of the painter, and
from an early age his hand was trained to copying the drawings
and paintings of others and not to original production of his own.
The art of engraving was quickly vulgarized and debased, and the
world of art was flooded with the works of indifferent Flemish
artists, such as Marten de Vos, Marten van Heemskerk or
Johannes Stradanus, engraved with skill and ease by the family
of the Sadelers in Germany, and other engravers of the same facile,
featureless, and mechanical school.
Indifferent, however, as these engravings were as works of art,
they yet formed a new and useful vehicle for popular expression,
and it was not long before they began to be used as an important
supplement to the writers and printers of books. Whereas on
the one hand the realistic art of the Brueghels appealed through
the agency of engraving to the imagination of an illiterate folk,
and laid the foundation thereby of the whole genre school in the
Netherlands, on the other hand the Church, and especially the
Jesuits, saw in the art of engraving a similar means of reaching
the minds of the people. The great printing press set up by
Christopher Plantijn at Antwerp was the principal agent in the
dissemination of Jesuitical literature, and the refined and enlight
ened intellects of the early managers of the Plantijn Press combined
to issue works which were both influential from the religious point
of view and were in themselves of the highest merits as artistic
productions. Rubens, whose mind could range over the whole field of art
and survey the future with as much ease as it studied the past, was
not slow to perceive the great value of the services which the
engraver might perform for him. Rubens, however, was not
content with merely outlining works of a moderate size and
importance for translation into engraving by artists over whom
her had no control. He devoted a considerable amount of time
and attention to the foundation and direction of a special school of
engravers, mainly devoted to the translation and reproduction of
his own paintings. As Rubens had rescued the art of the Flemish
painters from its downward path, so did he elevate that of the
engraver back to a high level, although in the secondary group of
translators. Under his inspiring influence a number of young
engravers grew up whose works often attain to the highest point of
excellence in the merely technical side of their art. Such were
162

ENGRAVING IN THE NETHERLANDS
the brothers Schetselen (Scheltius) and Boetius van Bolswert,
Lucas Vorsterman, Paul du Pont (Pontius), the De J odes, and
others, who rank among the finest exponents of the engraver's
art. Rubens kept entire control over their work under his direc
tion, and the reductions from his vast compositions were either
made by himself, or under his immediate direction by the best
draughtsmen among his assistants, such as Anthony Van Dyck
and Erasmus Quellinus. So important did the commercial value
of these engravings become, that in 1619 Rubens applied to the
Regents of the Netherlands for a special privilege to protect his
property in them, but without success.
Anthony Van Dyck was from his early youth associated with
the principal engravers in the school of Rubens, such as the De
J odes, as well as with the Brueghels, whose fame owed so much
to the reproductive skill of the engraver. He would naturally not
fail to see the advantage that Rubens and the Brueghels gained from
the multiplication of their works, both from the view of their artistic
reputation and from the actual commercial profit accrued. Allusion
has already been made to the tradition, handed down from Sir
Kenelm Digby, that Van Dyck was first employed by Rubens on
work for his engravers. When Van Dyck returned from Italy
and established himself at Antwerp as an independent painter,
and one whose renown extended beyond his own country, he
began at once, in imitation of Rubens, to utilize the school of en
gravers at Antwerp, and to superintend the reproduction of his
own works, the process adopted being the same. The Bolswerts,
Paulus Pontius, and the De J odes were all employed by him, or
by the printsellers who were concerned in this particular business,
and it is possible to discover from the engravings made by these
artists from the works of Van Dyck some of the principal paintings
completed by the painter at Antwerp. Lucas Vorsterman was
away in England, and did not return until about 1630. It is evident
that Van Dyck exercised, like Rubens, a personal supervision of the
engravings for his works ; for, when in England, he expressed his
dissatisfaction, as Vertue records, with the engravings made by
Wenzel Hollar, the Earl of Arundel's favourite engraver, saying
that Hollar was quite unable to enter into the true spirit of his
drawing. Apart from the advantages of commerce and publicity, these
engravings afforded an occasion for a suitable or opportune com-
163

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
pliment by inscribing on the plate a dedication to some influential
magnate or Church dignitary, or to personal friends and relations.
For example, Van Dyck himself dedicates the engraving by Pontius
of his ' Nood Gods ' at Madrid and Berlin to his sister Anna, the
nun in the convent of the Facons ; the engraving by Pieter de Jode
the younger, of his 'St. Augustine' to his sister Susanna, the &£
guine, and the engraving by Scheltius van Bolswert of his beautiful
' Repose in Egypt ' at Munich to his brother, Theodorus Walt-
mannus Van Dyck, the Canon of St. Michael's Church at Antwerp.
The engraving by Scheltius van Bolswert of his 'Virgin and Child
with St. Catherine,' in the collection of the Duke of Westminster,
Van Dyck dedicates to his friend, the Augustinian Father Gaspar
van der Meiren ; and that by Paulus Pontius of 'The Mystic
Marriage of the Blessed Hermann Joseph,' to John Chrysostom
van der Sterre, Abbot of his brother's Church of St. Michael. It
has already been noted that Van Dyck dedicated the engraving by
Lucas Vorsterman of the beautiful ' Nood Gods,' painted in 1634
for the Abbe Scaglia, to George Gage, whose acquaintance he had
made ten or twelve years before in Rome.
On some of the engravings from paintings by Van Dyck the
name appears, as publisher, of Martin van den Enden. This
individual dedicates an engraving by Bolswert from Van Dyck's
' Repose in Egypt with a Dance of Angels' to Gaspar Nemius,
Bishop of Antwerp ; another engraving by Bolswert from ' Christ
crowned with Thorns ' to Paulus Halmalius, a noted amateur at
Antwerp ; and that from the great ' Crucifixion ' at Ghent to the
commander-in-chief, Francisco de Moncada, whose portraits by Van
Dyck have already been described. It is difficult to conjecture
whether the idea of publishing a series of engravings from Van
Dyck's portraits originated with the painter or with the said Martin
van den Enden. It was probably with the latter, for the idea was
by no means a new one, and the venture was most probably of a
merely commercial character. Similar collections of engraved por
traits had been published from time to time during the last fifty
years or so, such as the collection of artists' portraits edited by
Lampsonius, and published by the engraver Hieronymus Cock
at Antwerp in 1572. The chief novelty about the publication of
Van Dyck's portraits lay in the whole series being taken from the
works of a single painter.
The scheme of publication suggests the mind of a man of
164

ADAM DE COSTER. STUDY FOR THE 'ICONOGRAPHIE'
; From the original in the British Museum

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THE 'ICONOGRAPHIE' OF VAN DYCK
business rather than that of an artist. The plan of the original
edition was to issue three series of portraits, the first containing
those of princes and distinguished military commanders, the second
celebrated statesmen and savants, the third artists and amateurs.
The last series was by far the largest, amounting to fifty-two out of
eighty, the first contributing sixteen, the second only twelve. There
is no evidence to show that these three series were ever issued by
Martin van den Enden as one complete publication, or that this
was ever contemplated. Certain differences in the lettering of the
plates, the watermarks of the early impressions, and similar small
technical details seem to denote that the three series were issued
separately and at intervals of time from each other. A drawing, in
the collection of Claude A. C. Ponsonby, Esq., for the portrait of
Carlo Colonna, engraved by Paulus Pontius and issued in the first
series, bears the date 1628, which may possibly be genuine, but does
not necessarily give a clue to the date of publication. On the other
hand, it is clear from a letter preserved in the British Museum,
addressed by Van Dyck in August, 1636, to Francis Junius,
librarian to the Earl of Arundel, asking him to suggest a suitable
inscription for the engraved portrait of Sir Kenelm Digby, which
he was about to publish, and which forms part of the second series
issued, that this series was not completed before that date, and that
Van Dyck took a personal interest in the publication. Lucas
Vorsterman, who engraved several portraits for the series, and
finished one plate which Van Dyck had begun himself, did not
return to Antwerp from England before 1631, and as his en
gravings of Gaston of Orleans and Spinola appear in the first
series, it is unlikely that this was issued before Van Dyck's removal
to England. The portrait of the Abbe Scaglia, issued in the
second series, bears the date of his death on May 22, 1641, though
this may have been added later on the plate.
The method of procedure would seem to have been as follows.
Van Dyck himself made in his own inimitable way a sketch in
black chalk of the portrait selected to be engraved. This was
taken either from one of his own completed works or from a draw
ing made by him as a memorandum of an earlier occasion. It
does not seem likely, except perhaps in the case of some of the
artists, that the drawings for this particular purpose of publication
were actually taken from life. The drawings for the portraits of
the celebrated Generals Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, Tilly,
165

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
and Wallenstein appear to have been taken from portraits by other
hands, and in one case, that of the celebrated Justus Lipsius, Van
Dyck does not seem to have shrunk from actually copying
a portrait painted by Rubens. These chalk drawings, of which
many exist, mostly in reverse to the print, are executed with
Van Dyck's most masterly vigour of expression. They appear
to have then been handed over to one of the competent
artists, trained for this purpose in the school of Rubens, who
made from them in oils a finished portrait in grisaille or mono
chrome, as a guide to the engraver, to whom the drawings were
next intrusted for the actual process of engraving. Many of these
small grisaille portraits exist, most carefully finished and capital
renderings of Van Dyck's style, but it is not possible on any
grounds to ascribe any of them, as has often been done, to the
hand of the painter himself. It might be supposed that the
finished drawing in grisaille would be submitted by the artist for
the painter's approbation before it was handed to the engraver, but
as the whole series seems to have been carried to completion during
Van Dyck's residence in England, such a procedure would have
been cumbrous and unnecessary.
The first series, that of princes and commanders, consisted
of sixteen portraits, as follows: Albert, Due d'Arenberg and
Marguerite, Duchess of Orleans, engraved by Scheltius Bolswert ;
Carlo Colonna, Alvarez Bazan, Marques de Santa Cruz, Emanuel
Frockas y Pimentel, Conde de Feria, Felipe de Gusman, Marques
de Leganes, Gustavus Adolphus, Marie de' Medicis, John, Count
of Nassau, and Thomas de Savoie-Carignan, engraved by Paulus
Pontius ; Gaston, Due d' Orleans and Ambrogio Spinola, engraved
by Lucas Vorsterman ; Jean, Comte Tserclaes de Tilly, engraved
by Pieter de Jode the elder; Genevieve D'Urfe, Marquise de
Havre and Albert of Wallenstein, engraved by Pieter de Jode
the younger ; and Juan Lelio Blancatcio, engraved by Nicolas
Lauwers. Of these sixteen portraits, those of the heroes of the
Thirty Years' War, Gustavus Adolphus, Tilly and Wallenstein
were taken from some outside source, and the rest, except those
of Bazan and Blancatcio, taken from important portraits already
mentioned in the text.
The second series, that of statesmen and savants, consisted
of twelve portraits, as follows : Caspar Gevartius, Constantyn
Huygens, Albertus Miraeus, and the Abbe Scaglia, engraved by
1 66

CASPAR GEVARTIUS.
Study for the "Iconographie."
In the Print Room at the British Museum.

VAN DYCK AS AN ETCHER
Paulus Pontius ; Paulus Halmalius, Erycius Puteanus, and Theo
dorus van Tulden, engraved by Pieter de Jode the younger ;
Nicolas Peiresc, engraved by Lucas Vorsterman ; Sir Kenelm
Digby, engraved in London by Robert van Voerst ; and two por
traits which Van Dyck had commenced to engrave with his own
hand, Antonius Triest, completed by Pieter de Jode, and Jan
van den Wouwer, completed by Paulus Pontius. Of this set, the
portraits of Miraeus, Scaglia, Digby, Triest and Van den Wouwer,
are taken from well-known portraits, and the portraits, drawn by Van
Dyck, of Huygens and Peiresc have been alluded to in the text.
The third and largest series, that of artists and amateurs,
consisted of fifty-two portraits as follows : Jean Baptiste Barbe,
Adriaen Brouwer, Martin Pepyn, and Sebastian Vrancx, engraved
by Scheltius Bolswert ; Hendrik van Balen, Jacob de Breuck,
Gaspar de Crayer, Cornelis van der Geest, Gerard Honthorst,
Daniel Mytens, Palamedes Palamedesz, Paulus Pontius, Jan van
Ravesteyn,Theodor Rombouts, Peter Paul Rubens, Gerard Seghers,
Adriaen van Stalbemt, Hendrik van Steenwyck, Theodorus van
Loon, Simon de Vos and Jan Wildens, all engraved by Paulus
Pontius ; Jacob de Cachiopin, Jacques Callot, Wenceslas Coeberger,
Deodatus Delmont, Antonius Van Dyck, Hubert van den Eynden,
Theodorus Galle, Orazio Gentileschi, Pieter de Jode the elder, Jan
Livens, Carel de Mallery, Joannes van Mildert, Jodocus de
Momper, Cornelis Sachtleven, Cornelis Schut, Pieter Stevens,
Lucas van Uden, and Cornelis de Vos, all engraved by Lucas
Vorsterman ; Adam de Coster, Jacob Jordaens, Andreas Colyns
de Nole, Cornelis Poelenburg, and Jan Snellincx, engraved by
Pieter de Jode the younger ; Artus Wolfart, engraved by Cornelis
Galle the elder; Michel Mierevelt, engraved in Holland by Willem
Jacobsz Delff; Franciscus Franck the younger, and Willem Hon-
dius, engraved in Holland by Willem Hondius ; Inigo Jones,
Robert van Voerst, and Simon Vouet, engraved in London by
Robert van Voerst ; and one portrait, that of Antonius Cornelissen,
commenced by Van Dyck himself, and completed by Vorsterman.
The majority of these portraits seem to have been done from draw
ings. It seems to have been Van Dyck's habit to collect the por
traits of such artists as he met or among whom he lived. His
friends and contemporaries in the art-world at Antwerp owe Van
Dyck a special debt of gratitude for having thus preserved their
memory and recorded their fame. Not only did Van Dyck include
167

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
his special friends such as Rubens, Van Balen, Snellincx, Wildens,
and De Jode, but he also included those painters who were the
most serious rivals to Rubens and himself, such as De Crayer,
Rombouts, Schut, and Jordaens. His admiration of the works
of other portrait-painters is shown by the trouble which he took to
include portraits of Mytens, Honthorst, Livens, Mierevelt and
Ravesteyn. Some of the Dutch artists he must have drawn during
his visit to Holland, but it is remarkable that he should not have
included in the series a portrait of Frans Hals.
In three of the plates mentioned in this first list, Van Dyck
appears to have actually handled the etching needle himself. In
Italy Van Dyck would have had many opportunities for studying
the works of the Italian etchers, and he certainly was acquainted,
probably at Florence, with Jacques Callot, the famous French
etcher, since his portrait- is among the artists depicted in the
' Iconographie.' It would not appear that Van Dyck intended
from the first to take a part in the actual engraving of the portraits
in the ' Iconographie,' but rather that he was led to it, either by
a wish to put more style into the engravings themselves, or else to
try his hand at one of the most fascinating of arts, that of the
painter-etcher. It must have been in Antwerp that he commenced
to practise the art, for an etching by Van Dyck, representing
'Ecce Homo,' is dated 1630 on an impression in the Albertine
collection at Vienna, and another, representing ' Titian and his
Mistress,' appears to belong to the same date. Both these com
positions are after Titian and date back to his Italian journey.
The latter is dedicated to his friend Lucas van Uffel, who probably
possessed the original picture, and its source is clearly shown by a
sketch of the same subject in the Chatsworth sketch-book, against
which Van Dyck has written Mors Titiani. It is not certain
whether these two plates were actually intended by Van Dyck for
publication, as they were afterwards heavily worked over by Lucas
Vorsterman, and their original character quite removed. The
same doubt would apply to the original etchings, which were sub
sequently inserted in the ' Iconographie.'
After the death of Van Dyck in 1641, the original eighty
plates of the ' Iconographie,' as described, passed at some time or
another from the hands of Martin van den Enden to those of
another publisher at Antwerp, by name Gillis Hendricx. In
addition to these Hendricx acquired fifteen plates etched by Van
168

LVCA5 VORSTERMAN^

LUCAS VORSTERMAN.
From an etching by Van Dyck.

THE 'CENTUM ICONES'
Dyck himself. These consisted of five portraits, of which Van
Dyck had only etched the head, namely those of himself, Frans
Snyders, Paulus Pontius, Paulus de Vos, and Guilliam de Vos,
which were now completed with the burin and entirely re-worked ;
five portraits, which were so far completed by Van Dyck as to
need only the addition of a background, engraved with the burin,
to complete them for publication, namely those of Jan Brueghel,
Franciscus Franck the elder, Adam van Noort, Lucas Vorster
man, and Hans de Wael ; and five portraits, which for some
reason or other were printed just as they were left by Van
Dyck himself, namely Pieter Brueghel, Jodocus de Momper, Jan
Snellincx, Justus Suttermans, and one of Erasmus, after Holbein,
which was quite unfinished and had probably been discarded by
Van Dyck as a failure. The portraits also of Van Dyck himself,
Pontius, De Momper and Snellincx, had been replaced by other
plates in the original edition.
These fifteen plates were now used by Hendricx in a new
edition of the ' Iconographie,' which, by the addition of six more
portraits ; Andries van Ertvelt, and Mary Ruthven, engraved by
Scheltius Bolswert ; Pieter de Jode the younger, engraved by
himself; Isabella Clara Eugenia, Francisco de Moncada, and
Wolfgang Wilhelm of Pfalz-Neuburg, engraved by Vorsterman ;
brought the number of plates up to one hundred. This edition was
published in 1645, and became known as the 'Centum Icones.'
The portrait of Van Dyck, etched by himself, was worked
up into a title-page for this edition by the engraver J. Neeffs,
the head being placed upon a pedestal which bears the title of
the work, as follows : Icones Principum, Virorum Doctorum,
Pictorum Chalcographorum Statuariorum, necnon Amatorum
Pictorle Artis Numero Centum ab Antonio Van Dyck
Pictore ad vivum express^ eiusque sumptibus mri incis^e.
Another edition of the ' Centum Icones ' was published by
Hendricx, who added five more plates. The plates, however, in
this edition do not bear the initials of Gillis Hendricx, who may
not himself have been responsible for the edition. A further
edition appeared in 1660, and in 1665 the plates, then numbering
no, were in the hands of an engraver, Francois Foppens, at
Brussels. During Van Dyck's lifetime a similar series of engraved
portraits by Van Dyck was projected by a contemporary painter
and engraver, Jan Meyssens, but never completed, only about
169 z

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
thirty portraits being engraved. Early in the eighteenth century
an entirely new edition was published by one H. C. Verdussen,
containing 124 portraits, and including some of those originally
published by Meyssens. Another edition, in two folio volumes,
containing 125 plates, with biographies of the persons represented,
was published by MM. Arkstee and Markus at Amsterdam in
1759. Subsequently the worn-out plates passed into the hands of
a printseller, Van Marcke, at Liege, who disposed of them to the
Chalcographie of the Louvre in Paris, where they now remain.
It will be noted that the title-page to Hendricx's edition of the
' Iconographie ' contains an explicit statement that the publication
was undertaken at the painter's own expense. It should also be
noted that this statement does not appear until four years after the
painter's death. Moreover, on a similar title-page, apparently an
alternative version, but discarded, these very words are omitted.
If the engraved plates were at Antwerp, they would, had they re
mained the painter's property, have passed under his will to his
sister Susanna and his daughter Maria Theresia, and it would
hardly have been possible for Hendricx to have made such a state
ment without their knowledge and consent. The plates etched by
Van Dyck himself may have been left by the painter with his
sister Susanna, who had charge of all his property in Antwerp,
when he went to England, and in their incomplete state not
considered by Martin van den Enden fit to include in the original
edition. These etchings, however, when printed as they left the hands
of Van Dyck, are among the most highly-prized treasures of the
engraver's art. In them Van Dyck shows not only the ease and
elegance of his own particular style in portraiture, but also such a
complete mastership of the technical process, considering the short
time which he seems to have devoted to it, that he is enabled
through the marvellous skill and restrained dexterity of his hand
to convey, by a few strokes in black and white, the modelling of a
head, the expression of the features, and the interpretation of a
person's character. These etchings stand alone in the history of en
graving. Compared with them the portraits engraved by Albrecht
Diirer seem laboured and obscure ; those by Rembrandt to suggest
exercises in chiaroscuro, or mere practice-studies with the needle ;
those by Whistler to display technical skill at the sacrifice of actual
human interest. The head of Van Dyck, as etched by himself,
170

VAN DYCK AS A DRAUGHTSMAN
and that of Snyders are among the most exquisite pieces of engrav
ing that the art has ever produced. A tribute to the excellence of
Van Dyck's work is the rapid disappearance of the peculiar qualities
displayed in the original etchings directly they came under the
hand of another engraver. Even the skilled hands of Pontius and
Vorsterman could not help destroying the individual charm of Van
Dyck's work. The etching of Van Dyck's own head is hardly to
be recognized in the heavy bust upon the pedestal on the title-page
to the second edition. Van Dyck does not, however, appear to
have continued to practise the art of etching. One other portrait,
that of Philippe le Roy, Seigneur de Ravels, was commenced by
him, but never included in the ' Iconographie.' An etching of ' The
Holy Family' may be by his hand, and also the original etching
for a portrait of Petrus Stevens ; but all others attributed to him are
probably mere transcripts by others from his works, except one
etching of a ' Bust of Seneca,' which is now ascribed with more
probability to the hand of Rubens.
As a draughtsman Van Dyck presents an unexpectedly varied
side to his art. Portraits he sketched in black chalk with a free
bold hand. A study of the genuine drawings by Van Dyck leads
quickly to the rejection of a number of portrait-drawings, ascribed
to him in public and private collections, which are nothing more
than copies from his engraved portraits, or even imitations. It may
be supposed that Van Dyck's portraits would be the models most
likely to be set before the youthful student in the painting schools
at Antwerp and in England during the seventeenth century, and
that many of these drawings are due to this cause.
But as a history-painter Van Dyck has left many drawings of
subjects designed for painting, but never carried out by him.
These are executed with a pen or sharp brush and washed with
bistre or Indian ink ; they belong to his early days, the Flemish
influence being paramount. Sacred history and mythology all
provide subjects. Some are obviously youthful efforts and belong
to his early days at Antwerp. Others were evidently done at
Genoa during the early part of his visit to Italy. One, a classical
scene, in the British Museum, possibly represents ' The Murder of
Polyxena,' and may have been the design for a painting in honour
of Polissena Spinola. Other drawings of this kind are 'The
Martyrdom of St. Catherine,' in the Louvre ; ' The Pentecost,' in
the Albertina Collection at Vienna ; ' St. Jerome kneeling before
171

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
the Infant Christ,' in the collection of M. Armand at Paris ; ' The
Triumph of Cupid,' of which similar versions exist in the Louvre,
the British Museum, and the Hermitage Gallery at St. Petersburg;
' The Trinity,' in the Louvre, possibly a first idea for the great
picture at Buda-Pest; 'The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence (?),' at
Cassel, in which the figures are very similar to those in ' Christ
crowned with Thorns,' ' The Betrayal of Christ,' and the ' St.
Sebastian,' ascribed before to the early part of his visit to Genoa.
Various studies in grisaille, sometimes with colour added,
similar to those of Rubens, are attributed to Van Dyck, some of
which may be from his own hand ; but where they approach more
or less exactly to the completed work, as in the case of the 'Icono
graphie,' such grisaille studies should be regarded as the work of
others, and probably made for the use of the engraver.
The Print Room of the British Museum contains a number of
those studies of figures and draperies, drawn in chalk on bluish gray
paper, which are specially alluded to by Jabach in the account given
by him of Van Dyck's method of painting. The same collection
contains some interesting examples of Van Dyck's sketches of
landscape. This is a branch of art with which the mind hardly
connects Van Dyck, but a careful study of his paintings will show
that the landscape accessories are usually carefully painted and often
of some interest in themselves. From his youth Van Dyck must
have been accustomed to regard landscape as one of the chief
branches of his art, through his early friendship with the Brueghels.
Rubens, too, was a devoted student of landscape, and trained up to
this branch of art such capable painters as Lucas van Uden and
Jan Wildens. Van Dyck's mind was not so expansive in this
direction as the other artists in the school of Rubens. His studies
of landscapes, such as those in the British Museum, are careful and
intimate, but do not suggest that he surveyed nature as a whole, or
ever thought of producing a painting in which mere landscape pre
dominated. As a draughtsman of animals Van Dyck excelled.
Like Rubens, he was fond of horses, and a good judge of them.
The horses in his equestrian portraits are all carefully studied, the
white horse with flowing mane, which he so often introduced, being
specially remarkable. It has been noted that the horse on which
Charles I. rides in the great painting at the National Gallery
belongs to a special breed, and this is further shown by the original
sketch for the horse in the British Museum. Dogs also were a
172

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STUDIES FROM NATURE
special delight to him, whether they be the great boar-hounds in the
portraits of the Prince of Pfalz-Neuburg, in the ' Five Children
of Charles I.,' or the portrait of Thomas Killigrew, the greyhound
in the portrait of the Duke of Lenox, or the little toy spaniels of the
court ladies.
Many of the studies from nature, whether horses, dogs, trees,
flowers or plants, which occur as accessories to his portraits, are
often executed with such care, and sometimes brilliance, that they
seem as if they must be the work of Van Dyck's own hand. It
is evident that he was largely esteemed as a draughtsman, for in the
great collections of drawings by the Old Masters, from that of
Sir Peter Lely to the present day, such sketches by Van Dyck
always take a prominent part. Moreover, there are few artists
whose drawings have been so frequently copied and imitated as
have been those of Van Dyck, great care being required in many
instances and considerable expert knowledge to distinguish those
which are really the work of the painter's own hand.

173

CHAPTER XV
Van Dyck and his Sitters— The Countess of Sussex— Notes on his Technique-
Van Dyck's Place in Art
AS a court-painter, gallant and romantic in his life at Blackfriars,
it might have been supposed that Van Dyck would have
sought to please his sitters by the gentle art of flattery, which
the portrait-painter does not as a rule hesitate to practise. As a
courtier it was probably his duty to ennoble, if not exactly to em
bellish, the likenesses of the king and queen, and to present them
with all " the divinity that doth hedge a king." It is curious, how
ever, to find, on examining the series of portraits of the English
nobility painted by Van Dyck, in how few cases these portraits
present that appearance which to modern eyes is associated with
the idea of personal beauty. Veracity is their dominating feature,
character and expression their most remarkable qualities. Take
the portraits of the Stuarts, Cecils, Herberts, Carys, and other
great families as depicted by Van Dyck, and one will find in them
all the marks of distinction and high-breeding, even to a pitch of cold
and disdainful haughtiness, which have always been a characteristic
of the English aristocracy. But of personal beauty there is little.
When Van Dyck paints a Philip, Lord Wharton, a Newcastle, or
the young Earls of Bristol and Bedford, it is evident that he is fully
capable of rendering the finest qualities of high-bred adolescent
beauty. So in his portraits of the ladies at court, whose /charms are
most frequently of an ephemeral nature and do not as a rule give a
clue by the external aspect to the real character of the woman within,
Van Dyck in his faces cannot help making many of them expression
less and insipid, though when he does get a chance, as in the case of
a Lucy, Countess of Carlisle, a Venetia Digby, or a Rachel, Countess
of Southampton, he shows that he can furnish a fairly good guide
to the lady's temperament. In Van Dyck's portraits it is the
splendid and inimitable style which raises them above the ordinary
level of portrait-painting, that sense of distinction and grandeur,
conceived by the painter himself, not by his sitters. It was just
these qualities which were so conspicuously deficient in the works
174

VAN DYCK AND HIS SITTERS
of men like Sir Peter Lely, Sir Godfrey Kneller, and others, who
in many cases aspired to be little more than face-painters, and really
in point of interest fell below the level of the " picture-makers " at
the beginning of the seventeenth century.
Van Dyck was more than a mere painter : he was a historian,
and it is through the actual veracity of his portraits that a clue
can be obtained to the causes which decided the result of the
Civil War. Jonathan Richardson, the painter, in his ' Essay on the
Theory of Painting' says: "Painting gives us not only the
Persons, but the Characters of great men. The air of the Head
and Mien, in general, gives strong indication of the Mind and
illustrates what the Historian says more expressly and particularly.
Let a man read a Character in my Lord Clarendon (and, certainly,
never was there a better Painter in that kind), he will find it im
proved by seeing a Picture of the same Person by Van Dyck."
Charles I., Henrietta Maria, Strafford, Laud, Derby and his wife,
Hamilton, Arundel, all the actors in the greatest drama of English
history, are known to posterity through Van Dyck.
Veracity was, however, not always pleasing to the ladies who
sat to Van Dyck for their portraits. Among the many precious
letters of the Verney family preserved at Claydon House in
Buckinghamshire, many of which have been printed in Lady
Verney's ' Memoirs of the Verney Family during the Civil War,'
there is a curious record of a portrait by Van Dyck. Among the
most conspicuous figures at court was Sir Edmund Verney, who
had been in the service of Henry, Prince of Wales, and had ac
companied Charles and Buckingham on their mad expedition to
Spain. In 1626 he had been appointed knight-marshal of the
royal palace, and though opposed to the policy of Strafford and
Laud, he remained loyal to the king. He accompanied him to
the north in 1639, and was portrayed by Van Dyck in his armour
with the commander's bdton in one of the painter's finest portraits
of this period, which is now at Claydon House. At the battle of
Edgehill in 1642 Sir Edmund Verney bore the king's standard
and died in its defence.
Among Sir Edmund Verney's friends and neighbours were the
Lees of Ditchley, for one of whom Verney acted as trustee. This Sir
Harry Lee married Eleanor, daughter of Sir Francis Wortley, and
died in 1631. His widow, in May, 1634, was married to Edward
Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex. She appears to have been a lady of
175

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
character and intelligence, very intimate with the Verney family,
and lived with her aged husband at Gorhambury in Hertfordshire.
In November, 1639, Sir Edmund Verney asked her to sit to Van
Dyck for her portrait, and her letters to his son, Ralph Verney,
contain many references to this event. In November she writes :
"Your father sendes me worde Sr Vandike will do my pictuer
now ; i am lothe to deny him, but truly it is money ill bestowde";
and a few days later: " Put Sr Vandicke in remembrance to do my
pictuer will ; i have sene sables with the clases of them set with
dimons — if this that i am pictuerde in wher don so i thinke it woulde
do very will in the pictuer. If Sr Vandike thinke it would do will
i pray desier him to do all the clawes so — i do not mene the end
of the tales but only the end of the other peses they call them clases
I thinke." In December she writes : " my pictuer, i hope you will
get Sr Vandicke to do in the best way"; again : " I am glade you
have made Sr Vandike minde my dres ; when it is don i becech
you pay him for it and get a hansom frame made to put it in and
then present it to my lady and to your father from me but the frame
I will pay for to "; and again : " As for Sr Vandicke I hope he will
trime up my pieter very fine and then i am content if he keepe it a
wile longer." In the following January she returns to the subject,
saying, " i am glade you have prefalede with Sr Vandike to make
my pictuer lener, for truly it was to fat ; if he made it farer, it will
bee for my credit — i see you will make him trime it for my advantige
every way." Ralph Verney appears to have ordered a copy, for
the Countess of Sussex again writes : " I am glade you have got horn
my pictuer, but i doubt he hath nether made it lener nor farer, but
to rich in jhuels i am suer, but it tis no great mater for another age
to thinke me richer then i was ; i see you have employede on to
coppe it, which if you have, i must have that your father hade before,
which i wish coulde be mendede in the fase, for it tis very ugly ; i
becech you see whether that man that copes out Vandicks coulde
not mende the fase of that — if he can any way do it, i pray get him
and i will pay him for it ; it cannot bee worse then it tis — and sende
me worde what the man must have for copinge the pictuer, if he
do it will, you shall get him to doo another for me ; let me know i
becech you how much i am your debtor, and whether Vandicke
was contente with the fifty ponde." The portrait, according to an
old inventory, was a full-length "in a blew gowne with pearle buttons."
Some time elapsed before the picture was delivered at Gorhambury,
176

THE COUNTESS OF SUSSEX
but when it did arrive, the Countess of Sussex wrote : "Swite Mr
Verney, the pictuer cam very will, many hearty thinkes to you for
it : the fram is a littell hurt, the gilt being robbede off; the pictuer
is very ill favourede, makes me quite out of love with myselfe, the
face is so bige and so fate that it pleses me not att all. It lokes lyke
on of the windes poffinge — but truly I thinke it tis lyke the originale.
If ever i com to London before Sr Vandicke goo, i will get him to
mende my pictuer, for thoo I bee ill favourede i think that makes me
wors then I am." When the lady in 1646 was about to be re
married to the Earl of Warwick, she asked Sir Ralph Verney to sell
her back the picture, "for i never hade any pictuer drane that was
considerable but that you have which Fandicke drue for mee ; that
if you woulde part with, i shoulde take itt for a great cortesy ; and so
much as itt coste you woulde bestowe uppon any thinge else that
woulde keepe me in your memory, the copy of the pictuer you
havinge allredy"; but Sir Ralph refused to part with the portrait,
as his father had valued it so much.
From these interesting letters it is possible to discover that
the Countess of Sussex sat to Van Dyck in November, 1639, m
blue silk and sables, that the portrait was not completed from
actual sittings given by the lady, and that the jewels introduced
by the painter were not the lady's own ; also that the price of the
portrait was ^50, and that there was a painter ready to copy the
portrait at once, the charge for the copy being £S. Further, that
early in 1 640, Van Dyck was known to be about to leave London.
Unfortunately both the original portrait of the Countess of Sussex
and the copy have disappeared.
Jonathan Richardson, the painter, who has already been
quoted more than once, when a very young man in the course of
his practice painted the portrait of a very old lady who, in con
versation at the time of her sitting to him, happened to mention
that when she was a girl about sixteen years of age she sat to
Van Dyck for her portrait. This, according to Northcote, the
painter, who records it in his ' Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds,'
"immediately raised the curiosity of Richardson, who asked a
hundred questions, many of them unimportant ; however, the cir
cumstance, which seemed to him, as a painter, to be of the most
consequence in the information he gained, was this : she said she
well remembered that at the time she sat to Van Dyck for her
portrait and saw his pictures in his gallery, they appeared to have
177 aa

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
a white and raw look in comparison with the mellow and rich hue
which we now see in them, and which time alone must have given
to them, adding much to their excellence." Perhaps, however,
the portraits seen by the lady in question were waiting for the
application of the varnish which he used, and of which an account
has been preserved by Edward Norgate, the limner, with whom
Van Dyck lodged when he came to England in 1632. The note
occurs in a manuscript treatise by Norgate on miniature-painting,
preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and is as follows :
" Sir Nathaniel Bacon's varnish for oyl pictures. Allso it was
the vernish of Sr Anthony Vandike, which he used when
he did work over a face again the second time all over,
otherwise it will hardly dry. Take two parts of oyl of
turpentine, and one part of Venice turpentine ; put it in a
pipkin and set it over the coles on a still fire, until it begin
to buble up ; or let them boyl very easily, and stop it close
with a wett woollen cloth untill it be cold. Then keep it for
your use ; and when you will use it, lay it by warm, and it
will dry."
Van Dyck is also said to have used a peculiar kind of drying
oil, which he prepared himself, and to have been careful to keep all
his colours dry except white, which he ground with nut-oil and
kept under water.
Some other curious details of Van Dyck's painting occur in a
manuscript in the British Museum (Sloane MSS., 2052) entitled
' Pictoria, Sculptoria & quae subalternarum artium spectantia,'
etc., being a collection of notes on the technical side of painting,
collected by the celebrated court-physician, Sir Theodore Turquet
de Mayerne, from 1620 onwards. These notes were gathered
from Van Somer, Mytens, Belcamp, Hoskins, Rubens, Lanier,
and other artists in London. Towards the close Mayerne notes
a conversation with Van Dyck on the nature and qualities of oil:
" Sr Antony Van Deik, chevalier, peintre tres excellent, Lon-
dres, 30 Xbns 1632. N. B. Oil is the principal thing, which
painters should be choice in, endeavouring to have it good
colourless fluid ; for otherwise, if it be too thick, it alters all
178

NOTES ON HIS TECHNIQUE
the finest colours, especially the blues, and whatever is
made with them, as the greens.
" Linseed oil is the best of all the oils ; it even surpasses nut-
oil which is more fat, and that of the poppy seed, which
becomes so, and easily thickens.
" Having suggested to him that these colours, blue and green,
when applied with gum-water or isinglass in distemper, and
then varnished, are as good as colours applied with oil, he
told me he very often laid it in those colours in his pictures
with gum- water, and when they were dry, passed his varnish
over them ; but that the secret consists in making colours
in distemper take and adhere to a priming in oil. This is
accomplished certainly and permanently, if the juice of
onion or garlic be passed over the priming ; the juice, when
dry, receives and retains colours mixed with water.
" This conversation arose in consequence of his telling me that
Signor Gentileschi, a Florentine painter of merit, has a
very excellent green prepared from an herb, which he
makes use of in his oil pictures, possibly in the mode above
described."
In another note Mayerne says of Van Dyck :
"Treatment of yellow. He makes use of orpiment, which is
the finest yellow that is to be found ; but it dries very slowly,
and, when mixed with other colours, it destroys them. In
order to make it dry a little ground glass should be added
to it. In making use of it, it should be applied by itself:
the drapery (for which alone it is fit) having been prepared
with other yellows. Upon these, when dry, the lights
should be painted with orpiment ; your work will then be
in the highest degree beautiful.
"He spoke to me of an exquisite white, compared with which
the finest white lead appears grey, which, he says, is known
to M. Rubens. Also of a man who dissolved amber with
out carbonising it, so that the solution was pale yellow,
transparent."
and again :
"20th May 1633 a Londres. The ground and priming for
179

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
pictures is of great consequence. Sir Antonio Van Deik
has made the experiment of priming with isinglass ; but he
told me that what is painted upon it cracks, and that this
glue causes the colours to fade in a very few days. Thus
it is good for nothing.
" Having given him some of my good [amber] varnish to work
with the colours, by mixing it with them on the palette in
the same mode as the varnish of Gentileschi is used, he told
me that it thickened too much, and that the colours in
consequence became less flowing. Having replied that the
addition of a little spirit of turpentine, and other fluid
which evaporates, would remedy this, he answered, that it
would not ; but that remains to be tried.
"He has tried the white of bismuth with oil, and says that the
white prepared from lead, the material commonly used,
provided it be well washed, is much whiter than that of
bismuth. The latter has not body enough, and is only
good for the miniature-painter."
To these contemporary notes on Van Dyck's method of painting
it may be interesting to add the technical notes on his style made
by Mr. J. P. Seguier, who, as a member of a famous firm of
picture-cleaners, through the hands of which so many pictures from
private collections in England have passed, enjoyed special advant
ages for a technical study of Van Dyck's painting. Mr. Seguier
says :
" Vandyck's canvases are thinly primed, and, like the Veronese
painters of the time of Titian, he used very little oil with his colours,
so that the surface is generally dry, or has a semi-tempera appear
ance. He would commence the lighter parts of his picture by
hardly covering the threads of the cloth, and then pass the second
coat of colour over in flat strokes about five-eighths of an inch in
width. The first strokes are usually from right to left, whilst the
last or finishing strokes are either reversed or horizontal ; but when
he came to the finishing touches on the high lights of the face, we
often find the colour ' stirred,' an ' S '-like form being given to
the touch. The hair of many of his portraits is painted in a
singularly slight manner ; on a kind of groundwork or neutral
colour he would mark in the curls in the slightest manner possible,
and with hardly any expression touches or high lights. The
180

TWO HERALDS. STUDY FOR THE PROCESSION OF THE
KNIGHTS OF THE GARTER
From the original in the Albertina Collection at Vienna

I

''' k^-

NOTES ON HIS TECHNIQUE
student will often notice with pleasure how conspicuously Vandyck
would display his ' drawing-strokes,' and a painter must be well up
in the technicalities of his art before he can venture to paint in this
way; and when skilfully accomplished, the eye seems riveted on
the features, which appear to be drawn in colours on a tinted surface.
The features do not appear to be scumbled or worked into the
flesh-tints, but they appear to be freely drawn on the colour, as a
head might be drawn in chalk on a sheet of paper. Now these
'drawing-strokes' are not only very conspicuous, but are very
sweet and masterly in Vandyck's portraits, and are very different
from the laboured blending of most of his followers ; in fact, we
cannot find this masterly kind of pencilling in the works of any of
them, not even in the works of Old Stone, however beautiful they
may be. The face-shadows of Vandyck's portraits are produced
with a little warm colour, a semi-brick-dust tint which he used
rather in the manner of a glaze than as solid colour, and in the
more delicate shadows he would introduce a little ultramarine.
His draperies are well painted and pleasingly coloured, and the
backgrounds of some of his fancy pictures are rich and transparent
in colour — are in fact very Venetian in effect."
Sir Joshua Reynolds, in the notes taken during his journey to
Flanders and Holland in 1781, comments unfavourably on the
reddish tones in Van Dyck's colouring, especially in the shadows ;
but he adds, in the case of the ' St. Augustine ' at Antwerp, that
the colours must have suffered some change, and are not now as
Van Dyck left them. In a previous chapter mention has been
made of the damaged state in which Van Dyck's sacred pictures
are at the present day. Probably there is not one of these paintings
which can be said to be intact or exactly as the painter intended it
to look. It may be alleged that, with all his great gifts, as a painter of
portraits Van Dyck was little more than a skilful composer of
formulas, and that in his portraits you find the same pose, the same
smile, the same far-off look in the eye, the same slender hand, the
same arm akimbo on the hip, the same foot raised on a step, as
well as the same ever-recurring studio paraphernalia, the gold-
brocaded, or sometimes scarlet, curtain, the imaginary colonnade,
the sharp edge of the studio-window, casting the face into a kind
of silhouette against the light beyond, or fashioned into the sem
blance of an overhanging rock with a pretence of rustic simplicity.
181

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
To no artist so much as to the portrait-painter are such conven
tions a matter of necessity, if he is to obey the dictates of fashion
and cope with its inconsiderate demands. It cannot be denied
that in England these formulas did eventually degenerate in Van
Dyck's studio to mere mannerisms and tricks of the trade, weari
some from their repetition ; but it is sufficient to look at the works
of his copyists, or his imitators, such as Sir Peter Lely, to show how
Van Dyck's own magnificent style saved him from ever descending
to a commonplace or futile level. As a modern writer, Mr. C. J.
Holmes, has well said,1 "it is style, which teaches a man how to
strike with the least possible exertion to himself and the greatest
possible effect, and the man of great strength may do much with
out style, but would do more with it."
Another modern writer, Mr. Claude Phillips,2 who has been
quoted before, shows his thorough appreciation of Van Dyck's place
in art in the following words :
"To watch the developments of Van Dyck's art through the
four successive periods with which not only outward circumstances,
not only the onward movement of time and the change of milieu,
but the corresponding transformations of style and method naturally
divided, is to watch in its growth from splendid youth to admir
able maturity, not indeed one of the greatest creative individualities
that have dominated the world of art, but a talent as exquisite in
distinction as true to itself in every successive phase, a technical
accomplishment as surprising of its kind in solidity, brilliancy, and
charm as any that could be pointed to even in the seventeenth
century. "We do not feel as we did in surveying the life-work of a
Rembrandt, that we are assisting at the creation of a new art which,
by reason of its colossal technical power, ever subservient to the
purposes of true expression, which, by reason of its grandeur and
pathos, its all-embracing pity, its revelation of the innermost springs
of human life and feeling, stands alone, and contains already the
essence of that which is to give its chief value to the art of our own
day. We do not feel — as with Rembrandt — that side by side
with the growth of the art there is laid bare to us with absolute
naivetd the moving tragedy of a simple human soul, the poignant
quality of whose emotion appeals to our time with an irresi$tible

1 'The Dome,' September, 1899.
2 'Nineteenth Century,' November, 1899.

182

THE CRUCIFIXION
From the original in the British Museum

VAN DYCK'S PLACE IN ART
attraction of sympathy which it had not even for the master's own.
Again, we do not feel ourselves swept away — rebellious, it may be,
yet powerless to resist — by the tremendous physical vigour, by the
mighty joie de vivre which constitutes the essence of a Rubens's
genius, and furnishes the best excuse for his wildest pictorial ex
cesses. The elemental force of his art, as of his personality, the
aggressive splendour, the ardent flame of his colour are not to be
looked for in Van Dyck, at any rate after that period of glorious
promise in early youth to which we are now coming. What our
master does give at the first stage is a febrile, nervous passion all
his own, then an aristocratic grace, a refinement which the great art
of the Cinque Cento in Italy will mature the more easily, the more
perfectly, because its attraction is exercised upon an art naturally
akin to it. To Van Dyck belongs the glory of having approached
more nearly in portraiture to the Venetians at their highest than did
any other painter born north of the Alps ; of having assimilated, by
no mere process of imitation, that divine suavity of Italian art by
which, above all other things, it is distinguishable from art that is
not Italian. And yet he remains — how otherwise could we rank
him so high among the great masters ? — in essentials a Fleming, a
man of his own race and his own time, but a Fleming from whose
individuality the national qualities of boisterous vigour, of kinship
with the lower humanity, of breadth and expansiveness have been
( strained away — not, it must be owned, without loss as well as gain.
If as a portraitist of high-bred women Van Dyck had but few rivals,
if no painter of his time better knew how to realize their fragile grace
and the haughty reserve touched with a certain allurement with
which they presented themselves to the outer world, he was yet
pre-eminently the painter of men. No one has known, as he
did, how to conjure up the pensive charm, the thoughtful, appre
hensive mood, the manliness, void of self-assertion or truculence,
which marked the noblest and most engaging cavaliers of Charles's
court." The painter with whom it is most natural to compare Van
Dyck is Velazquez. Both painters were born in the same year,
1599, and thus helped to inaugurate a new era. In many respects,
as Mr. C. J. Holmes has further said, " they are remarkably alike.
Both had extraordinary accuracy of eye and extraordinary sureness
of hand, both were men of culture, both were careful students of the
work of their forerunners, both show the most exquisite taste in
183

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
design and colour, both possessed extraordinary knowledge of the
resources of their art, both created by deliberate science rather than
by half-conscious enthusiasm." Both painters also visited Italy,
and of their own initiative and in opposition to the general trend of
opinion, discovered that Titian was a greater master than Raphael
or Michelangelo. Both painters enjoyed the personal patronage
and friendship of an art-loving monarch, and are known to posterity
by their portraits of that monarch and his court.
But the difference between the two painters is very great.
Van Dyck completely mastered the whole science of painting,
and, having reduced it to a series of formulas, welded them into a
scheme of his own, and worked from them with complete and
convincing success. There is nothing sudden, unexpected, inex
plicable, or obscure in his work. Everything unpleasant, ugly, or
distorted is avoided. Van Dyck's art was intended to please, not
to create surprise or wonder. Velazquez, on the other hand,
having mastered the technical side of his art, used his knowledge
for the development of his own genius and for the advancement
of the painter's art. Every stroke of his brush denotes the working
of a mind which seeks to discover what painting can do further,
not merely what it has done before. His painting is full of
emotions, and if these be of a somewhat gloomy character, it must
be remembered that his surroundings were those of the cold and
colourless court of Philip IV., set among the bleak and inhuman
Sierras round Madrid. Even in the series of Van Dyck's greatest
portraits those of the Spanish grandees stand apart with a severe
and impassive dignity of their own.
The two great portrait-painters never met, and there is no real
evidence that either painter was acquainted with the works of the
other. The paintings commissioned by Philip IV. from Van
Dyck, or purchased by his representatives in Flanders, were all
sacred pictures. Velazquez had known Rubens, and was for a
time profoundly influenced by him, but there is no trace of Van
Dyck in any of his works. On the other hand, in such portraits
as that of the Due d'Arenberg at Althorp, and the equestrian
portrait of Thomas de Savoie-Carignan at Turin, there is a look
of Velazquez which suggests the possibility that Van Dyck had
seen some portraits of Velazquez and had tried to assimilate some
thing of their spirit. This is quite possible, since the Regent
Isabella would be likely to be possessed of some paintings of the
184

ALBERT, DUC D'ARENBERG-
In the collection of Earl Spencer, K.G, at Althorp

VAN DYCK AND THE FRENCH ACADEMY
Spanish royal family, or at all events to have such portraits among
the official furniture of the royal palace.
Velazquez, buried in the centre of Spain, remained for a century
and a half unknown to the art-world, save for a certain amount of
second-rate studio portraits of the Spanish royal family which had
found their way as presents to the various courts of Europe. His
works were as little known or understood as those of Van Dyck are
by persons who know only the paintings of Van Dyck's latest years
in England. Van Dyck, however, at once took a ruling place in
the world of art. In England the Civil Wars,the slip-shod elegance
of Charles I I.'s court, and the ponderous imitations of Dutch art
which were forced upon the country by the advent of a Dutch king,
all combined to destroy or put aside the ennobling influence of so
perfect a master of style as Van Dyck. In France, however, the
influence of Van Dyck became more and more marked, and lasted
into the eighteenth century.
At the special meeting of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts at
Antwerp on Sunday, August 13, 1899, M. Georges Lafenestre, in
an eulogy of Van Dyck, described the influence of Van Dyck on
the French Academy in the seventeenth century. " C'est a la fin
du XVIP siecle," said M. Lafenestre, "par nos grands portraitistes,
Largilliere et Rigaud, que Van Dyck apparalt, deddement, comme
le maitre de l'ecole. Largilliere n'eut point de peine, a sen penetrer,
puisqu'il est de chez vous, fils d'un negociant francais, etabli a
Anvers, et qu'il ne quitta les Flandres, dans sa jeunesse, que pour
aller etudier a Londres, ou il retrouvait Van Dyck a chaque pas.
II l'aima done et le comprit, il le fit aimer et le fit comprendre, et,
depuis ce temps, l'art du portrait, en France, m£me a la Cour, fut
ranime et rechauffe. Est-il necessaire de rappeler ce que'il y a de
Van Dyck dans le talent de Claude Lefebvre, de Tournieres, de
Francois de Troy, de J.-M. Nattier, de Watteau et de tous les
peintres galants ?
" Les papiers de la vieille Academie sont remplis de temoignages
ecrits de l'admiration que professent pour Van Dyck tous les color-
istes, toux ceux qui veulent donner a leurs images le charme et le
mouvement de la vie. Voici de Lafosse, si prevenu en faveur
de Rubens et de Van Dyck, perfectionnes, comme lui, sur l'ecole
venitienne, qu'il trouve que ces deux peintres avaient mepe porte
plus loin leurs connaissances et I'intelligence de la peinture et
avaient surpasse les Venitiens dans certaines parties de la couleur.
185 bb

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
Voici Jean-Baptiste Oudry, eleve de Largilliere, qui, le 7 Jum
1 749, lit une longue et admirable conference sur la couleur, dans
laquelle il met en parall&e, avec une hardiesse et une experience
superieures, les principes d'observation de l'ecole flamande et les
principes traditionnels de l'ecole classique. Toute la reconnaissance
d'Oudry, comme celle de Largilliere, va a Rubens et a Van
Dyck." M. Lafenestre further narrated how the great portrait-painter
Hyacinthe Rigaud was, at the age of eighteen, advised by the
painter Charles le Brun not to go to Rome, but to stay at home
and study nature and Van Dyck. Rigaud did so, and copied
Van Dyck so often and so sedulously that his copies were taken
for originals by Van Dyck by his own friends. Pierre Puget, the
famous sculptor, had in his country residence a portrait of Van
Dyck in a place of honour, and in his studio eight copies after Van
Dyck, which he had himself painted at Genoa. In later years
the painters Gros and Gericault revived the enthusiasm for Van
Dyck and the Flemish art, which had waned during the baroque
period of the eighteenth century and the pseudo-classicism in the
early years of the nineteenth.
Another French author, the Marquis d'Argens, writing in
1752, says : " On a souvent demande et Ton demande encore tous
les jours qui a ete le plus grand peintre ; pour moi je crois sans
balancer que c'est Van Deick. . Mon amour pour ce grand homme
n'est fonde sur aucun prejuge ; je ne suis ni son compatriote ni
son contemporain, ainsi ce sont uniquement ses talents qui me
determinent a le placer au-dessus de tous les peintres Italiens,
Francais et Flamands. . . . Presque tous les peintres pensent ce
que je soutiens ici, mais ils n'osent l'avouer hautement, parce qu'ils
craignent de heurter des prejuges contraires a leurs sentiments."
In England the tyranny of the face-painter, the Dutch realism
with its negation of style and elegance, prevailed until the early
years of the eighteenth century. Sir Joshua Reynolds, as a youth
in Devonshire, became acquainted with the portraits painted by
one William Gandy, a local artist, and formed his early style on
them. This Gandy was the son of James Gandy, who has been
classed among the actual pupils of Van Dyck in England. At
this early age, therefore, Reynolds imbibed the spirit of Van
Dyck, and with it that feeling for grace and elegance which is so
great a distinction in the many noble portraits which he painted.
186

INFLUENCE OF VAN DYCK
In his early days Reynolds copied many works of Van Dyck,
both portraits and history, and some of these remained in his
house until his death. In the portraits of Reynolds Van Dyck
lives again, though the vivacious romance of Charles I.'s court is
not to be found in the heavy and sober circles of the Hanoverian
kings. Reynolds's great rival, Thomas Gainsborough, was even more
pronounced in his admiration of Van Dyck. During his whole
life he was continually studying and copying the works of his great
predecessor, and he arrived at such a pitch of excellence in copying
Van Dyck that it is very difficult to distinguish one of Gains
borough's copies from the original. In all his incomparable por
traits Gainsborough was a successor of Van Dyck, and even in
his pencillings, so marked a characteristic of his work, he was
reproducing one of the chief features in Van Dyck's technique.
One scene has become historical in the annals of portrait-painting.
Some slight jealousies existed between Sir Joshua Reynolds and
Gainsborough, sufficient to keep these two great painters apart. In
July, 1788, Gainsborough lay on his death-bed. Grieving at what
he thought had been a lack of courtesy to Reynolds, Gainsborough
sent word to the President desiring to see him once more before it
was too late. Reynolds hastened to his bedside, and the two great
painters interchanged their parting words on their art. Gains
borough murmured words which the deaf President had to stoop
to hear; the words were: "We are all going to Heaven — and
Vandyke is of the company."
In the latter part of the nineteenth century the influence of Van
Dyck has waned in England and France. Even his fame as a
painter became slightly obscured. This was largely due to a
better knowledge of the supreme genius of Velazquez, which was
now revealed for the first time to the greater part of the world,
when better facilities were provided for reaching and studying at
Madrid. Young painters who were weary of ancient formulas,
especially those which had been encrusted by tradition and false
affectation until the truth was hardly discernible, welcomed the new
discovery of this great, almost unknown genius. From France,
England, and America painters flocked to drink at the spring of
Velazquez, and the whole trend of modern art has been affected
by the result. Whistler, Carolus-Duran, Sargent, have all drawn
their inspiration therefrom, and by their own genius and their
187

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
admirable industry have earned their places among the immortals.
But to the majority of artists the very modernity of Velazquez is a
dangerous guide, for in seeking to be more modern than Velazquez,
they most frequently meet with a fall and seem to slip backwards
in the race. There are not wanting signs that popular taste in
England, never wholly converted to the stronger flavour of Velaz
quez and the modern French school, will revert once more to the
old standard of Sir Joshua Reynolds and Gainsborough, the grace
and elegance, the directness and simplicity, the inimitable style of
Anthony Van Dyck.
Horace Walpole wrote of Van Dyck that "his works are so
frequent in this country that the generality of our people can
scarcely avoid thinking him their countryman." Yet, although
admission is often readily and generously granted to the great man
sions of the British aristocracy, it is not to be expected that the
masterpieces of Van Dyck's art preserved in such houses can ever
be really well known to or appreciated by " the generality of our
people." To the traveller in search of emotions there occur few
such impressions as those afforded by the first entry into the Van
Dyck rooms at Munich, Dresden, and Vienna. At the Louvre in
Paris the priceless paintings by Rubens and Van Dyck have at last
had honour done to them, an event to be ardently hoped for in
the Prado Gallery at Madrid. In London, the place where the
genius of Van Dyck gained its final crown of success, the National
Gallery owns only some five or six paintings by Van Dyck ; while
the National Portrait Gallery has but one portrait by Van Dyck,
and that not unquestionable as to its authenticity. Little therefore
can the student know of Van Dyck, unless he is able to visit the
great galleries of the Continent.
The student who can accomplish this will probably end by
asking where shall Van Dyck be classed among the famous
painters of the world ? Not with the giants of painting, with
Titian or Rubens, with Leonardo or Michelangelo, or even with
Rembrandt ! In portrait-painting, if the judgment of the world at
large be accepted as a guide, Van Dyck may be held to surpass even
such great painters as Holbein, Velazquez, and Frans Hals, even
though as a mere painter he may fall short of these artists in actual
technical skill and dexterity. Of all the famous painters, the one
with whom Van Dyck may most fitly be compared is Raffaello
Sanzio. What Raphael was to Timeteo Viti and to Perugino,
1 88

INFLUENCE OF VAN DYCK
Van Dyck was to Van Balen and to Rubens. Both painters had
the same feminine temperament, as shown in their personal aspect,
their character, and the general spirit of their art. Both enjoyed
the patronage of a court lavish and luxurious in its surroundings ;
both died on the threshold of middle age, worn out by hard and
incessant practice of the art acting on a frail constitution, weakened,
certainly in Van Dyck's case, possibly also in Raphael's, by ill-
regulated passions. Both artists, moreover, by their work mark
the close of an epoch in painting rather than the beginning of
a new one, gathering together the existing ideas of their age,
selecting and reducing them to formulas, and then perfecting them
into exquisite form by their own peculiar sense of elegance and
proportion. It is the directness and simplicity thus obtained by
Raphael and Van Dyck which have made them better understood,
and therefore better appreciated, by the multitude, and have secured
for them a pre-eminence in the history of art which is likely to
remain unshaken by time or prejudice. No higher praise can be
given to Anthony Van Dyck than to link his name with that of
Raphael.

^ irc/i/'i.t/iop ^A.cuuA -v/y?
.Ai tJie. riAlectii'ii c/'t/u- Aarl'C/ityu.'i.lLiamJi.lA.

APPENDIX I
(A) WILL OF SIR ANTHONY VAN DYCK
(B) POEM BY EDMUND WALLER ON THE PORTRAIT OF
'SACHARISSA' BY VAN DYCK
(C) POEM BY ABRAHAM COWLEY ON THE DEATH OF
SIR A VANDYCK, THE FAMOUS PAINTER

(A) WILL OF SIR ANTHONY VAN DYCK
Extracted from the Registry of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. (151. Evelyn.)
Reprinted from Carpenter's ' Pictorial Notices of Vandyck ' {Appendix)
In the Name of God Amen. I Sr Anthony Van Dyke Kn' borne in Antwerpe in Brabandt weake of
body yet enjoyinge my sences memorie and vnderstandinge laude & praise be given to Allmightie God
consideringe that there is nothinge more certaine then death and nothinge more vncertaine than the
houre thereof have made & ordayned and by theis pflts doe make dispose of and ordayne this my last
Will and Testament in manner and forme followinge First I comend my soule into the hands of
Allmightie God my heavenly Father And my body to the earth to be Christianlike & decently buryed
in the Cathedrall Church of St. Paul in London And soe cominge to the orderinge and disposinge of my
temporall goods & estate which it hath pleased the Allmightie God to lend vnto mee here vpon earth I doe
order and dispose of the same as followeth Imprimis In respect of my moneys meanes and goods the
which I haue now lyeinge & remayninge in Antwerpe aforesaid (exceptinge twoe obligacons or bonds
amountinge both to the some of fower thousand pounds sterlinge) and left in the hands of my Sister
Susanna Van Dyke in Antwerpe, the same I doe leaving wholly to the disposeing of my said Sister
conditionally that out of and with the rents or vse money thereof my said Sister shalbe bound to
mayntayne and keepe my young Daughter by name Maria Teresa Van Dyke And if soe be my said
Sister should chance to dye or depart this life Then and in such case my said goods and moneys there
shalbe receaved & employed to the benefitt and proffitt of my said Daughter surviveing by the foure
Madams of the Nunnery where my said Sister Susanna now liveth at pffite And alsoe it is my will &
pleasure that out of the said moneys and goods my other Sister Isabella van Dyke shall have and enjoy
for her proper vse twoe hundred & fiftie gilders yeerely to be payd her out of the said moneys and
estate left behind mee in Antwerpe as aforesaid And after the decease of my Sister Susanna and of my
Daughter Maria Teresa Van Dyke the aforesaid moneys and estate afore menconed shall fall & come
to my lawfull Daughter borne here in London on the first day of December Anno Dni One thousand
sixe hundred fortie & one stilo Angliae whereof I make and ordeyne her full & lawfull heire Secondly
Concerninge all the rest of my estate moneys debts pictures & goods bonds bills & writings whatsoever
left behind mee in the Kingdome of England with all such debts as are owinge & due vnto mee by the
Kings Matie of England or any of the Nobility or by any other person or persons whatsoever the same
shall all with that which shalbe recouered thereof be equally devided betweene my Wife Lady Maria
Van Dyke and my Daughter new borne in London aforesaid in just & equall porcons Provided allwayes
that such moneys as are out at interest shall soe still contynue and remayne at interest And my said
Wife shall expend of the vse money onely with care and discrecon And in case my said Daughter borne
here in London shall happen to dye before the Mother my Wife In such case shall the said Mother
inherite & enjoy halfe of the said Childs part or porcon And my other Daughter beyond sea shall
enjoy the other halfe of the said Childs parte And if soe bee my said Daughter in Antwerpe and my
Sister Susanna Van Dyke both come to dye before my daughter borne in England then shall the said
rents goods & meanes which are in Antwerpe & left behinde mee as aforesaid fall & come to my said
Daughter in England survivinge And if both my said Daughters dye or happen to dye without issue
before my Wife survivinge Then and in such case shall my said Wife enjoy and possesse the said
rents or vse of the said moneys in Antwerpe And after the death of my said Wife the Children then
of my Sister Catharina married with Sr Adrian Dircke shall inherite and enjoy the said rents & meanes
left in Antwerpe aforesaid And likewise I doe give & bequeath vnto the Poore of S* Pauls Church
where I doe purpose & desire to be interred three pounds sterlinge to be distributed amongst them
And likewise I doe give vnto the Poore of the Parish of Blackfriers where I live the like some of three
pounds sterlinge amonget them And alsoe I doe give & bequeath vnto every one of my servants both
menservants & maydservants at pflte lyvinge with mee in my howse twentie shillings sterlinge apeece
for a remembrance the which said legacyes are to be first payd out of my estate afore menconed by the
Executors of this my last Will & Testament And I doe appoint make & ordeyne my said Wife Maria
Van Dyke Mris Catharina Cowley and Mr Aurelius de Meghem all herewth pfflte All and every of
them joyntly & Severallie full & whole Executrices & Executor of this my last Will & Testament
willing and requestinge them to see this my last Will perform'd in all points to their power And I doe
give vnto the said Aurelius de Meghem for his paynes & care herein the some of fifteene pounds sterlinge.
And I doe give and allowe vnto the said Catharina Cowley the some of tenn pounds sterlinge for her
193 CC

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
paynes & care herein. And my will and pleasure is that the said Catharina Cowley shall over and
aboue haue and receave out of my said estate the some of tenn pounds sterling for fower yeeres to witt
duringe the tyme of fower yeeres together yeerely tenn pounds sterling beginninge from the day of my
decease And after the said fower yeeres are expired then shall the said Catharina Cowley have and
enjoy eighteene pounds sterlinge p. ann. that is to say every yeere eighteene pounds for the being
Guardian vnto my Daughter till she bee eighteene years of age And this doe I acknowledge for my
last Will & Testament revokeing & disannullinge all former Testaments guifts & Codicells Causa
mortis or otherwise by mee heretofore made & graunted by vertue of this pflte In wittnes whereof I
the said Sr Anthony Van Dyke have herevnto putt my hand & Seale for my last Will & Testam' on
the fourth day of December Anno Dni 1641 and in the seaventeenth yeare of the Raigne of or
Soveraigne Lord King Charles.
Ant0. Van Dyck. — Ego Notarius et testes infrascripti fidem facimus et attestamur Quod prefatus
Dnus Testator compos mentis memorie et intellectus hanc vltima sm esse voluntaP et testamentft
significauit signauit et sigillauit vt supra et p facto sustradit die Mense et Anno vt prius Ita attestor
rogatus — Abr. Derkindee, Norius Pubius. — Teste Dirrick Vanhoost.
The Will was proved the 13th of December, 1641.

194

(B) POEM BY EDMUND WALLER TO VAN
DYCK ON THE PORTRAIT OF
'SACHARISSA'

Rare artisan ! whose pencil moves
Not our delights alone, but loves ;
From thy shop of Beauty we
Slaves return that enter'd free.
The heedless lover does not know
Whose eyes they are that wound him so ;
But, confounded with thy art,
Inquires her name that has her heart.
Another, who did long refrain,
Feels his old wound bleed fresh again,
With dear remembrance of that face
Where now he reads new hope of grace,
Nor scorn nor cruelty does find,
But gladly suffers a false wind
To blow the ashes of despair
From the reviving brand of care.
Fool I that forgets her stubborn look
This softness from thy finger took.
Strange ! that thy hand should not inspire
The beauty only, but the fire ;
Not the form alone, and grace,
But act and power of a face.
May'st thou yet thyself, as well
As all the world besides, excel !
So you the unfeign'd truth rehearse
(That I may make it live in verse)
Why thou couldst not at one assay
That face to after times convey
Which this admires. Was it thy wit
To make her oft before thee sit ?
Confess, and we'll forgive thee this :
For who would not repeat that bliss ?
And frequent sight of such a dame
Buy with the hazard of his fame ?
Yet who can tax thy blameless skill,
Though thy good hand had failed still,
When Nature's self so often errs ?
She, for this many thousand years,
Seems to have practised with much care,
To frame the race of women fair ;
Yet never could a perfect birth
Produce before to grace the earth,
Which waxed old ere it could see
Her that amazed thy art and thee.
But now 'tis done, O let me know
Where those immortal colours grow
That could this deathless piece compose ?
In lilies ? or the fading rose ?
No ; for this theft thou hast climbed higher
Than did Prometheus for his fire.

195

(C) POEM BY ABRAHAM COWLEY ON THE
DEATH OF SIR A. VANDYCK, THE
FAMOUS PAINTER
Vandyck is dead ! but what bold Muse shall dare
(Though Poets in that word with Painters share)
T' express her sadness ? Poesie must become
An art, like painting here, an art that 's dumb.
Let 's all our solemn grief in silence keep,
Like some sad picture, which he made to weep,
Or those who saw 't ; for none his works could view
Unmoved with the same passion which he drew,
His pieces so with their live objects strive,
That both or pictures seem, or both alive.
Nature, herself amazed, does doubting stand
Which is her own, and which the painter's hand ;
And does attempt the like with less success,
When her own work in twins she would express.
His all-resembling pencil did outpass
The mimic imag'ry of looking-glass ;
Nor was his life less perfect than his art,
Nor was his hand less erring than his heart.
There was no false or fading colour there —
The figures sweet and well-proportion'd were.
Most other men, set next to him in view,
Appear'd more shadows than the men he drew.
Thus still he lived till Heaven did for him call,
Where reverend Luke salutes him first of all ;
Where he beholds new sights, divinely fair,
And could almost wish for his pencil there,
Did he not gladly see how all things shine
Wondrously painted in the mind divine ;
Whilst he, for ever ravish'd with the show,
Scorns his own art which we admire below.
Only his beauteous Lady still he loves
(The love of heavenly objects heav'n improves) ;
He sees bright angels in pure beams appear,
And thinks on her he left so like them here.
And you, fair widow, who stay here alive,
Since he so much rejoices, cease to grieve.
Your joys and griefs were wont the same to be ;
Begin not now, blest pair, to disagree.
No wonder death moved not his gen'rous mind,
You, and a new-born you he left behind.
Even fate express'd his love to his dear wife,
And let him end your picture with his life.

I96

CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.

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